The missing point is that it is not what you fly- it is that you fly.

I cannot really image that new shiny glas ships make all that
difference. When I took up gliding with 15 years of age I was trained
on the K13 and soon flew Ka8 and Ka6. I always thought these were
beautiful gliders and a lot of fun to fly.

In my opinion the main problem of declining numbers of glider pilots
in germany is that society has changed over the past 25 years. People
used to have comfortable jobs with a lot of spare time. They could
afford to support a family and still put a lot of time into gliding
clubs. Now jobs are more demanding and time consuming. People tend to
have more money but less time to spend it. This seriously affects the
structure of many german gliding clubs which depend on the time and
commitment of their members to keep operating at low costs. Nowadays
many people can more easily afford to get a brand new high performance
self launcher than putting a lot of time into the club. In the long
run I think we are going from a commitment supported structure to a
cash and carry service oriented structure. I find this sad because all
those 14-year-olds of the future won't be able to afford gliding
anymore.

Many german clubs have been building and improving their fleet for 50
years. By good maintenance and care, these fleets hardly loose value
and upgrading to the next better model isn't such a big step to take.
I think that is why you find so many nice fleets over here. I don't
really see how you want to go from 2-33 to DG1000 in just one step.

One of the main reasons many german clubs are trading their K13s for
fiberglass trainers is not that they are more attractive to new
members but because of their easier maintainance. Fibreglass ships
usually just need a bit of polishing while a wooden glider needs a
major overhaul every 10 - 15years. With decreasing numbers of members
this is becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish. Metal gliders
are not as popular because there is far less knowledge of how to
maintain and repair them;-)