I'm 26, have been flying sailplanes for about a year, and absolutely
love it. I've always been obsessed with wanting to fly, and now that
I'm into sailplanes, I can't imagine doing it with an engine. The
thing is, most people my age who want to learn to fly think that a
cessna is the way to go. They hardly know what a sailplane is, and
even if they do, they think that an engine is clearly better than no
engine. People I know who fly power seem to enjoy it, but after the
initial fun wears off it's more of a practical thing than a real
thrill. Sailplane flying is flying purely for the sake of flying. Oh,
and it's usually much more affordable than power flying. Alot of
people that I know who want to fly don't do it, because they think
it's too expensive. If we could show these people that soaring is more
fun and actually affordable, we would be going great.

We need some great PR work! Someone out there must have some
connections/time/ressources to dedicate to this. I've seen the
articles that got published in the National Geographic decades ago.
What we need now is some fresh and current media coverage. A great
article in the lifestyle section of the NY Times, an episode of a TV
show on the Discovery channel,... Maybe even using Youtube as a
resource. There are already alot of great soaring videos on there. How
do we make sure the right people see them? How do we show these people
that this sport is actually accessible to them?

On Mar 21, 9:02 pm, Nyal Williams
wrote:
Nothing at all, except that, like soaring, the general
public doesn't think of it. Re-read Fred's remark
about 'soaring.'

At 03:30 22 March 2007, Tony Verhulst wrote:

Nyal Williams wrote:
Excellent commentary. I find, however, that most
people
hear glider and think hang-glider. I'm loathe to start
saying 'glider plane' but I might just do that.

So what's the problem with the term 'sailplane'?

Tony V.