Obscurity and inaccessibility.

I think mostly obscurity. The soaring mindset IMHO (USA) is to only
market the sport to those already in aviation, an already small subset
of our society. That momentum keeps this sport a secret.

Even though I was an air force brat, I had no exposure to general
aviation or soaring. I went to school (texas tech) only a couple
hundred miles from Hobbs, home of the USA SSA. Littlefield, site of
some great contests, was only about 50 or so miles away. I didn't know
a thing.

I was absolutely fascinated with aviation as a kid. Had I been
introduced to soaring as a youngster I would have made the effort. I
only found out about it by chance similar to another story in this
thread. I would like to think I am fairly knowledgeable fellow- I had
no idea people did this, and if you go to a high school or college
right now, I would bet you a significant majority has no idea what a
sailplane is and more certainly what they are capable of doing. I would
speculate that there are not too many sports veiled in that kind of
secrecy. If you don't tell anyone about it, it is't going to grow. I am
absolutely befuddled that we complain about the growth but don't change
anything to sell it.

It is never going to enjoy mass appeal

No sport is meant for everyone. Where we differ form other sports is
that everyone knows about white water rafting, mountain climbing,
sailing, at least to the point of knowing what it is. The "average man
on the street" doesn't even know what soaring is and will likely never
know with our current mindset. It has nothing to do with whether it
will hit the switch or not- he will never see the switch to start with.

Joe in Atlanta GA USA




I think gliding will always be a minority sport. It is never going to

enjoy mass appeal. It either terrifies the average man in the street
or
it simply fails to throw the necessary switch. The idea of flight is
not
to him what it is to you and me, it's a means to an end, whereas here
it
is the end in itself.

But beyond that, our principle problem is obscurity and
inaccessibility.
Nobody knows we're here, and if they do, they've no idea how to
access
us. That's certainly true here in the UK, and I'd guess no different
over in the States judging by some of the other posts in this thread.