On 11/5/2010 4:02 PM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 15:44:18 -0500, Jim Logajan wrote:

wrote:

Snip...

1) Do you think you can get *ANY* young person interested in soaring if
what they see is a 2-33? After playing any modern computer game? After
watching movies like "The Fast and the Furious"? The 2-33 looks like a
dog and flies slowly.

I started lessons when I was 52. I didn't have a problem with the club's
2-33 because it is possible I'm not a shallow youth anymore. ;-)

I started learning when I was 54, and that was certainly thanks to a ride
in an ASK-21. I'd had a couple of trial flights 8-10 years previously in
an ASK-13, but though it was a nice experience it didn't inspire me to
take up gliding. However, and I don't know why, that flight in an ASK-21
in the fall of '99 at Front Royale set the hook and I joined Cambridge GC
in the UK at the start of the 2000 season, picking them for no better
reason than they were the only local club with a glass training fleet. As
it happened I couldn't have chosen better given the club's strong xc
culture. This became apparent at the 2001 Regionals when I got my first
cross-country ride in the club's G103: I had a ring-side seat as my P1
won the day on handicap.


OK, I'm convinced. Having as many as possible intro gliders into soaring is
better than having fewer...regardless of WHAT the intro gliders look like!

Bob - options are good - W.

P.S. Now I'm ready to be convinced it makes economic sense within our
non-growing sport to junk perfectly functional sailplanes - i.e. sailplanes
that meet *some* (or they'd've been retired already) real club/commercial
operator needs - in favor of replacements carrying considerably higher
up-front replacement/ongoing insurance costs, just because the former were
designed before 'ergonomics' gained favor!