On Sep 6, 6:32*pm, RAS56 wrote:
As a relative newcomer to the sport, my 2 cents on why there's a general
decline in participation in contest soaring is that there is a general
lack of a structure and interest of "passing XC knowledge" along in the
soaring community to new guys. Folks just want to go to the gliderport
on Saturday, assemble and fly, and I can't necessarily blame them.
RS

--
RAS56

This is exactly what a sports class regional is set up to accomplish!

I think there's a huge misunderstanding here about what it takes to
"be ready" to go to a sports class regional. No, you don't have to
profile the wings, install a new computer, and get a thousand hours of
cross country. You need one silver badge distance flight or its
equivalent on OLC. Period. That's not much!

Then, the whole point of sports class regionals is to bring new pilots
who are just getting going, and provide exactly the mentoring you're
looking for. Every regional provides a "mentoring" sytsem where you
will have your own personally assigned buddy. Many have explicit
"newbie" classes in the mornings.

The structure and interest for passing on knowledge is there! It's
called a sports class regionals.

John Cochrane