F.L. Whiteley wrote:
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, your general thesis is absolutely correct. We reach them by
concentrating on the group which you correctly describe as already
interested but not blase about the flight experience. These are not the
under thirties, they are the over-55s. Certainly in my country, this is
also the age group where the growth is occurring while the under
thirties are a shrinking group (both absolutely and relatively). I know
it will make many of our clubs unpalatable socially to a number of
younger enthusiasts but hey - we all have to suffer for our pleasures.

As you rightly point out, the EAA has an aged population - and that is
one of the most popular flying clubs ever. Does AOPA release membership
statistics broken down by age?

Graeme Cant