Andreas and all:

May I try to give an American's view of DJK Segelfluggemeinschaft?

Back in the previous century, from 1983 to 1986, the club that Andreas
belongs to now (he was not a member back then) allowed me to enter
their soaring sanctuary and become a member of their club. At that
time, the club had:
Ka-7
Ka-8b (they still have this glider)
Standard Astir
Grob 103 Acro
ASW-15
ASW-20BL (Is there anything prettier than an ASW-20 going up on the
winch?)
Scheibe SF-25 motor glider
Robin DR-300 towplane (with Lycoming 0-360) (They still have this
towplane, I think)
TOST winch mounted on an old, ancient Mercedes truck. Also, a couple
of cars used to pull the winch cables back to the launch point. One
was an Opel (I forgot the model) and the other was a Ford Taunus (not
Taurus, but Taunus, as in the "Taunus" mountain range in Germany.)

The Theisinger brothers, Martin and Georg, had their own LS4.

The field is located in Rhineland Pflaz, just outside the small town
of Landau in der Pfalz. Wine country. Wonderful Riesling wines. Oh,
and a beer or two might be found there...

Using Google Earth, find Landau and then just on the south edge of
town, you'll see the airfield. At one zoom level, it looks as if the
road running west northwest - east southeast is #38 and zoom in more,
it looks to be L-543. The runway is parallel to this road. You can
see the hangars and some gliders. And you can see one winch on the
western end. Notice the six sided building near the hangars. Sort of
like a big, fat wind tetrahedron. That is the DJK clubhouse. I
understand the strange shape is due to the size of the windows that
were given to the club. They built the building to fit the windows.
It's a two-floor building with a couple of bunk rooms, bathrooms, and
an office on the ground floor and kitchen / dining room and deck on
the upper floor. The large windows in the dining room look out to the
runway, of course!

At the field are two clubs; the DJK club and another club. Both clubs
use winches for their primary means of launching gliders and the
airfield is wide enough to allow the two winches to be used; one winch
on the left side, one on the right and the middle used for aerotowing
and landing. Prevailing winds are from the west. If the winds shift
to the east, they have to aerotow. Go back to Google Earth and you
can see the limits of the runway depicted by the white "dots" (Tires
painted white and partially buried, I think) Note the western end of
the runway and the winch location. There's some unlandable land in
between there. Not a problem for winch launching to the west, but it
doesn't work when you need to launch to the east. Ah yes, in the
Google Earth photo, you can see a car on the "left" track. That's
probably the "lepo" going to retrieve the winch cables or towing the
cables back to the launch point.

Some have asked how they can afford all of this. I wondered then and
I still wonder now how they could do it. Well, I don't know. But I
do know there are many members who give a lot of "sweat equity" to the
club. I don't know, but I suppose either the entire club house or a
large portion of it was built by club members.

Aircraft maintenance is done by club members. During my time in the
club, the major winter project was stripping the towplane of all its
fabric, repairing any of the wood structure or anything else,
recovering it, painting it, and hanging the new (rebuilt?) engine on
it. All by club members. Even I had a hand in some of the work.

And when the Standard Astir had the AD to replace the aileron (or was
it spoiler?) bellcrank, it was done by club members.

We had some really talented club members that directed the others as
to what to do and how to do it. So, major in-house maintenance saves
a large amount of money.

They first put me into the Ka-7 for learning winch launching and see
if I could handle aero towing, then the Ka-8b and finally the Standard
Astir. Oh, and I flew the Acro once in a while, but I preferred the
Standard Astir.

The Ka-7 was kept busy with students making five and ten minute
flights off the winch. My log book has a lot of five minute flights
in the Ka-7. And I loved it! All the students (up to 10, I guess, on
a busy day) kept the Ka-7 very busy.

When I was moved into the Ka-8b and then the Standard Astir, I usually
didn't have to share it with others. (Andreas, if others were waiting
and cussing at me for not coming back, I never knew about it.) Seems
like during my time, the pilots were either Ka-7 pilots or the "high
performance" pilots flying the ASW-15 and ASW-20. And even for the
ASW-15, there were just a couple of pilots flying it. And not many
were flying the ASW-20.

Since my command of the German language was limited to something like
"Ein Bier, bitte", I really didn't know what all was going on.

I don't know how the grass cutting of the field was paid for. Did the
two clubs split the cost? Yea, in the evenings, a local shepherd
would tend to his flock of sheep while they nibbled on the grass, but
I think the grass still had to be cut from time to time.

I don't know how the cost for insurance was handled. Did our
membership fees pay for it? How much was the insurance?

I do know when I was there, the dollar to Mark ratio was VERY
favorable for me and flying was CHEAP. We paid a yearly fee that
covered "dues" and unlimited winch launching. Any aerotows were paid
extra. There was no rent on the gliders. Back in those years, I
don't think I paid more than about US$500 per year. I really don't
remember. But I knew it was cheap flying.

The Theisinger brothers were either instructing or flying their LS4,
and amazing me with the flights they would make. They are the ones
that introduced me to XC flying. They didn't take me XC, but just
showed me on a sectional chart where they were planning on flying. I
couldn't believe flights were possible, as they were making, in
gliders! Damn, they were good! And I'm still jealous! :-)

The club was, and probably still is, as much a social club as it is a
soaring club. Families would spend the weekend there in their camping
trailers. We had a big supper prepared by club members on Saturday
and a big lunch on Sunday. At 4:00 pm on both days, flying would just
about stop and everybody would come to the clubhouse for cake and
coffee. Saturday nights, after supper, we would sit around the
clubhouse and drink a beer or two. So, I'm sure a lot of members
didn't even fly, but came for the social interaction. So, you would
have their dues coming into the club, but they weren't flying and
limiting the flying time for other members.

Looking back, some of the things that made these two clubs work a
1. Located right on the edge of a town and not out in the middle of
nowhere. And, in a very picturesque place.
2. Things to do in the area if you didn't fly. Go shopping, go
hiking (volksmarching), visit vineyards, walk around town window
shopping, visit a castle, etc
3. Big social aspect of the club with the lunches, coffees, and
suppers.
4. Camping at the field with the entire family.
5. Doing a lot of the aircraft maintenance by knowledgeable club
members.
6. Getting "sweat equity" out of club members.

It all added up to a winning formula. Back in that time, the field
was, I think, government property. But as Andreas says, the two clubs
have purchased the field.

The club probably is still going strong and I hope for them all the
best.

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA