Soaring is declining because the experience of flight is highly accessible.
It is more common to find young people in North America and Europe that have
flown somewhere on a jet, achieving FL350 or greater, than would be the
common youthful experience of many following RAS. I would expect that if I
were to survey the local high school, I would find more than 50% of the
students had flown at least once. In my HS days, this would have been
5-10%. Many of my generation fly because we seek the mystic of flight,
soaring being one of the venues. EAA has a whole host of greybeards,
because propellars have always been more accessible. Flying high, fast, and
far has been de-mystified for a much larger segment of my society. As a
result, I expect the number seeking to soar to be a lesser percentage. As
the population grows however, I also expect the total number of seekers to
grow. Now, how do we reach them?

Frank Whiteley