son_of_flubber wrote:

But my question is this, can an "old person" learn to fly and does the
soaring community have the patience to teach them? Are there special
challenges to developing an older student and how well are those
challenges addressed?

Sure they can. Of course young people learn faster but in the end it matters
to keep the enthusiasm. My newest student (15 years old) soloed with 32
winch launches, where we expect a rate of 40 to 50 as an average. My
personal experience is that the number of launches to solo goes up with the
age, so a 50 year old guy can expect 80..100 launches.

Special challenges... not really. More patience is needed when the student
needs more time. We try to address all students by their personal progress,
independant of age.

This is my experience as instructor in a small german glider club
Chris