Yeah well when you got no chance to fly an Airbus, an Learjet, or an F-16,
to name a few, some sims might spark your interest.That's it if you're
interested in flying and computer games, some people don't like computers.
That's ok with me.
I fly gliders (as a matter of fact I prefer flying gliders to sims, believe
or not) but I'm also a big fan of Falcon 4.0, an F16 'hardcore' sim.
IMHO soaring could be declining because it's expensive (more expensive than
other popular activities) and more important, it is a time consuming
activitie. Not an inmediate gratification activitie, requires investment in
both money AND time, and if you don't have a passion for flying to begin
with, it will not catch you. All the people I've flown with liked the
experience but only who came decided to get involved with flying behorehand
actually stayed in and got their licence. And of those, not all of them
continued soaring after that.
In Spain at least, my personal impression is that soaring is growing. It is
becoming available to that pool of people with deep interest in aviation,
not that we are convincing anyone.
For my part, at least, I don't have a great interest in turning soaring into
a mass sports, like skying has become. Just keep it open and accessible for
everybody (I mean, no elite attitude), and people with real interest will
get in. The ocassional pilot can be more of a hazard than a contribution to
the sport, in my opinion.

Good flying!
Jose M. Alvarez
ASW-24


I've bought several versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator in the hope
that a better version will spark my interest. So far, they bore me to
tears.

Tony V
http://home .comcast.net/~verhulst/SOARING