"Don Johnstone" wrote in
message ...
I have just read through this thread. I don't think
the problem is one single factor but there is a problem
with infrastructure. Just look around your club, what
is the average age of the instructors? Is that average
reducing? Are the numbers of instructors increasing
year on year? The sad truth is that if we were able
to recruit large numbers of new students most clubs
would not have the instructor resources to train them
and sadly if you don't enable people to see they are
progressing at a decent rate they become disallusioned
and find something else 'more exciting'.
We have been seeing (in the UK) a gradually decreasing
instructor pool. I had my first instructor category
at 18 and until this year I had retained it. Over the
years being an instructor has become less and less
of an advantage and the club where I flew even charged
me more membership that someone who did not instruct.
I flew about 5 hours in 2003 in my own glider from
my own club. The only time I could fly it was if I
went away where I could not be the duty instructor.
I don't think my case is unique. It is absolutely
pointless trying to attract new students until we have
put right the decline in the numbers of people qualified
to teach them, and that means attaracting young people
into instructing. With the cost of attaining an instructor
category, where the potential instructor has to spend
large amounts of his own cash, it is perhaps not surprising
that becoming an instructor is less popular. There
is no doubt that it is possible to purchase your own
glider, with a reasonable performance, for less money
than you will spend on getting a full cat rating or
even an Ass Cat. Given that choice which way would
you choose?
Seeing what happens tomorrow is not a plan!!!!!


Good point, Don.

I think the 'care and feeding' of instructors is a world wide problem. It
belongs in the top three issues that need to be solved for the sport to
resume growth. Clubs need to start looking at flight operations from the
point of view of the instructors.

Many clubs in the US require that an instructor pay initialization fees and
dues for the "privilege" of instructing for free.

I once asked a club for a simple favor of a bottle of water between student
flights and was told "we don't have bottled water - here's your next
student". I think it's possible that many of the training accidents are, at
least in part, caused by dehydrated instructors.

If you assembled a group of instructors and asked them, "What would make
your job more fun?" one of the answers would surely be, "Get us more
comfortable trainers". Another answer might be, "Get us a mobile office at
the launch point where student records can be stored and where we can sit
down out of the weather and fill out paper work."

Without enthusiastic instructors, there is no sport of soaring.

Bill Daniels