There is almost no aid from the German government. However, everey single
work is done by volunteers (including building the very infrastructe) and
mostly, launching is done by a winch.
Moreover, clubs often started out to build their first (wooden) gliders
themselves, and than reselling/renewing on regular intervalls so that after
50 years of that process, their capital base is pretty good (owning the
equipments, no loans, often owning the airfield).
One of the main sources for that is that Germany has lost both wars, and
powered flight was forbidden for years. The result is that anybody wanted to
fly turned to gliding... and even today, the density of glider pilots as 3
times higher than in France (make that: 3 times more volunteer work force
available to set up things).

"Michel Talon" wrote in message
...
Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:49:41 +0000 (UTC),
(Michel Talon) wrote:

Price is
LS4-Janus-Pegase 17,40 euros/hour
LS 8, 15, 18 mètres 23,50 euros/hour
Duo-Discus 30,60 euros/hour

Pretty amazing prices (I think at Soissons it's significantly

Well it is certainly cheaper where it is impossible to fly. If i look at
Vinon's tarifs
http://www.vinon-soaring.fr
they are exactly of the same order, except the complete "forfait" is
more expensive:
"FORFAIT HEURES ILLIMITEES Toutes machines : 2200 euros".

cheaper). I definitely couldn't have afforded to start up gliding in
your club, nor would I have fun today if I calculated the cost for a
simple 500 km triangle...

Happy to share this deduction with you. This is precisely the point a
lot of people are contesting.



So i clearly see something of the order of 2000 euros/year, and i am
quite sure you will have hard time to find less expensive while still
decent around Paris - and by the way i doubt very much it is less
expensive in the Alps.

I wonder what you are doing with all that money. Do you need to rent
your airfield?

I have been member of this club, but mainly of Buno-Bonnevaux, which is
more expensive but has paid people to do instruction and work on gliders
in winter. In my experience, pure volunteer organizations are very
unfriendly, and one is happier in more professional ones, even paying
more. Anyways, both these clubs have to rent the airfield, of course,
pay for cutting grass, for water and electricity, for the installations,
for the periodic vists of the gliders, and planes, for reparations, and
whatever. Thsese clubs provide detailed expenses to members and i have
never seen anything suspicious.


In my club (with gliders at least as good as yours) the total cost per
year doesn't exceed 600 Euros per year.


Yes it is not the first time i hear that prices are infinitely less in
Germany. I have never understood how it is possible, since, as i said,
the above French prices can be justified very easily, and are
homogeneous among similar big clubs with modern fleet. Perhaps you have
enormous aids from german state that you are not aware of. From what i
have been told, things are worse in Italy, etc.



Bye
Andreas

--

Michel TALON