On Feb 1, 9:30*am, Jim Beckman wrote:
At 01:25 01 February 2009, Andreas Maurer wrote:

BTW: At the moment the entire *German 15m-class national team consists
of pilots of my club
I'm pretty content with the situation.

Am I safe to assume that all of these guys have been flying their own
gliders rather than club equipment? *

Maybe one cause for that is that we have a very good social life (and
an own club house) - on weekends there's always an afternoon tea,
dinner and lunch, lots of wifes and children around. Many good causes
to land and have a coffee and some self-made cake...
I guess this is what makes many German clubs different from US clubs:
The social life often plays a part that is nearly as important as the
flying.

There are *some* clubs in the US that make the social aspects an
attractive part of the activity. *At Blairstown, we do OK - on any decent
day you will find anywhere from four to a dozen folks hanging around the
field after the flying is over, drinking beer and BSing about what great
pilots we all are. *Caesar Creek, Texas, Chillhowee, *and many others have
very nice facilities. *There seems to be some critical number that has to
be reached before this sort of thing can happen. *Age also has something
to do with it. *Our little group in Somerset has an average age probably
about half of what it is in Blairstown. *The younger folks have families,
responsibilities, and even actual social lives beyond the airport, so they
are less inclined to stick around when flying ends.

Jim Beckman

As one of the "younger" guys with a wife and family, I do believe one
of the critical issues we face in many US clubs is indeed the lack of
anything for the non-flying members to do while dad (or mom) is up
flying. Having travelled pretty extensively and visited about a
dozen clubs in Europe (UK, Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland) I'm
struck by how many of them (pretty much all that I've visited) have a
great winch operation, a "real" clubhouse, "real" maintenance hanger
(drool), and facilities for caravans (RVs). With all of the
amenities, a weekend at the field tends to look a bit less like
torture. Yeah, it may not exactly be the #1 choice for the gang, but
at least it's sellable when compared to say, hanging out at home all
weekend. When I was in England last week on a cold and rainy weekend
(i.e. pretty much a typical day), there was a huge amount of
activity at both clubs I visited. People were hanging out for lunch,
working on gliders, etc. even when there was no flying going on.

So, I do believe a lot of it comes back to land. Specifically, the
fact that land use policy (or lack thereof) in the US means that a
flat piece of land within say 90 minutes drive of most major
metropolitan areas is going to run into the several $milions. For
instance, a 30 acre property in a place equidistant from say NYC and
Philadelphia would set you back about $1M minimum... if you could even
find a town that would let you put in an airport. If you look at
the largest clubs in the US, almost without exception they are the
ones that had the foresight to secure their futures back in the 60s or
70s by purchasing their own land. Those that didn't continue to
limp along as they share busy public use airports and struggle with
the demands made by the airport owner/operator.

Now, I'm not saying that this is the ONLY reason nor is it an excuse
for some of the other trends, but I believe that a lack of a "place to
call our own" inhibits all but a few clubs in the US from hitting that
critical mass that it takes to fund the sorts of fleets and activities
that European clubs have. I'm certainly open to counter arguments.