On Mon, 8 Oct 2007 18:33:36 +0200, alex8735 wrote
(in article . com):

On 7 Okt., 17:55, Udo wrote:
[lots of stuff deleted]

Flying is not really cheaper in germany. We just pay less money and
more time. A normal club member will spent about 10 half days each
year on the winch (or doing some other job on the field), is expected
to stay and keep the operation running the whole day if he wants to
participate (1hour of flying means spending the whole day at the
field) and has to work 60 - 80 hours in the winter doining maintenance
or other chores. Most clubs depent on a small number of people who are
willing to invest even more time into the club.

I think this really is the key. In our club a winch launch is ¤3.50, a minute
flying between ¤0.20 - ¤0.50 capped at 3hrs, towing w/ our Piper Super Cup is
about ¤3,-/minute and there is a monthly fee of around ¤30. This is the cash
component.

Now if we work less than 50hrs per year, then there is an extra ¤500 to be
paid to the club. In addition between 50+ and 100hrs per year the charge for
flying is multiplied between 1,5 (@50 hrs) and 1 (@100hrs). Up to 150 hrs you
can further reduce your flying charges to a factor of 0,5.

This keeps the cash involvement down for those who do not have that much to
spend - mostly our students and pupils - and for those who have cash but no
time, it offers an opportunity to fly without the chores of beeing tied to
the winch for half a weekend 10x per year. The downside, of course, is that
most of the upkeep of the actual flight operations is carried by the younger
ones - often those w/ the least experience.

Now if you compare that pricing against a commercial gliding operation (e.g.
at the Wasserkuppe), the extra charges they charge more or less match the
"work component" involved in flying in a club.

So bottomline seems to be this: flying in Germany seems to have the same cost
(more or less) wherever you go. As long as you fly within a club environment,
you can replace cash with sweat and time. That's what makes it LOOK cheap.

my ¤0.02

Torsten