On Aug 23, 10:13*am, Tuno wrote:
Micki: I agree with Andy -- well said. Pilots should face a loss of
more than $100 if they fail to show up without sufficient notice.

When the Arizona Soaring Association hosted the 2006 Region 9 at Turf
we faced a major problem when the Air Force Academy pulled out at the
last minute. Due to the generosity of just two local pilots -- and I
will name them, Chris Woods and Mike Rubenstein (both of whom donated
unused meals and tows) -- we avoided a loss by the skin of our teeth.
And hosting a regional at Turf is much less of a headache than at
Parowan.

Keep your chin up, Micki, it is always the 5% of peelots that cause
90% of your grief. The rest of the pilots cheer the efforts of you and
Charlie and I for one hope you start making enough money from these
things to buy yourself something nice!

-ted/2NO/contestjunkie

Okay I ran some numbers on this - based on the detailed financial
report for the 2009 R9 contest (thanks Micki).

Without agonizing over details - the total cost for a 60-glider
contest is about $45,000. About $10,000 is truly fixed costs. Another
$6,000 goes to meals which are mostly-fixed (subject to minimum
commitments some time in advance) and about $25,000 goes to tows which
are semi-variable (fuel is a variable cost and tow pilots tend to take
much of the risk of less than anticipated numbers of tows due to
weather or drop-outs). Sanction fees and other purely variable costs
make up the balance.

If you add it all up, you should be able to cover the fixed costs
(including meals) for a non-refundable deposit of $275 and a $375
deposit would allow you to cover for 25% of the no-show tow fees as
well.

I'm sure a smaller contest would have more fixed expenses per pilot.

So my idea would be to make the deposit $350, $250 of which is
refundable prior to the Preferential Entry Deadline and none of which
is refundable after 2 weeks prior to the first practice day. It would
be up to the organizers to decide on special exceptions such as for
broken gliders.

9B