On Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 11:56:55 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Great post. Very well thought out. Highly valuable guidelines. I think it's amazing work that you are all doing there. I commend you for your time and energy. That said, I think the program is falling slightly short of its full potential. Not for a lack of effort, but maybe for a slight lack of vision.

I'll go back to my earlier quote..."train how you fight, fight how you train."

Your solid junior primary instruction program is geared, as most clubs with any measurable junior flight training activity likely are, towards getting them "the certificate." Once they have checked that box, they have little else to shoot for or get excited about. It's the finish line. XC is not organized into or "built into" the experience of learning to fly sailplanes. Its not part of the plan. It's not the objective. It's not the next level in the growth and progression. It's not on the menu. It's not built into the culture. The kids all get their license. This works great (train who you fight), but very few go beyond that level (fight how you train).

My contention remains that if the common goal was (generally) for the "U.S. junior" to learn to soar (real XC skills), these kids would go much farther and get much more excited about it along the way. They might say something like "I want to make the Jr nationals" or "fly the adult contest" for example. In a short period of time, they would almost certainly surprise us as much as we are surprised by the British, French, German, or Australian youth today. American juniors are more than capable of learning to fly XC.. XC would, very likely, make their entire experience more fun and more rewarding for them. It would create a gravity that would attract more and more.

To put it another way...If we were able to broadly shift the youth focus in the U.S. past primary training to XC, it might just have exponential effects that could truly change the face of US Soaring for the better.

Getting juniors their "pattern license" is just phase one. Our collective goal could be getting them ready to earn their SSA silver badge and getting them prepared to compete in the U.S. Jr. Nationals (or region 6 junior regionals, whatever)! New junior pilots could crew for the older kids (or simply attend, camp, hang out, learn, etc), older kids in the program would be better instructors and mentors, and so on. Imagine the chemistry these kids would have within their ranks. Imagine how much the new kids would look up to the older kids who were already soaring XC! We are simply aiming too low for them. We are missing the ball. In fact, we aren't even bothering to swing!

80% of the path to correcting this problem is simply beginning to try.

We should probably all be a little upset with ourselves (collectively) for not identifying this problem sooner (assuming we are now). The time has come to take advantage of what XC soaring can teach our juniors and do for our sport domestically. The time has come to change almost everything we are doing with youth soaring. The same goes for commercial operations.

Put another way, what will US soaring (the SSA) look like in 15 years if we keep on doing exactly what we do today (youth soaring development)? What would it look like if we developed hundreds of young cross country pilots in that same period? Debate that all you want but the latter sure sounds like more fun for everyone involved.

How many youth cross country pilots will your club generate in the next 1, 3 or 5 years? Will we begin to host Jr events, camps and contests to give them their own "thing?" East coast Jr Nationals? Weat coast Jr Nationals? Will we take it to the next level (XC) as other successful countries have in terms of youth development?

We actually have a tremendous opportunity in front of us. Nothing is more important or, I imagine, more rewarding than junior cross country pilots. The biggest prize at the SSA convention next year should be the club team that developed the most net new Junior glider pilots who earned solo silver badges. This prize should require a forklift to transport. And all the Jrs who achieve silver badges should be recognized on a page in the SSA magazine that is made of real gold leaf, with articles about the flight, photos, etc.

Sean

i have to disagree with you about HHSC's junior program falling short man. i've got to defend us just a little bit, and expound on tom berry's comments. (whose doing a GREAT job for us)

*i am a result of the junior program
*so was corey sullivan (JR worlds participant, and past entrant in a dozen us contest as a junior)
*so was jason howard (Previous JR contest pilot & ventus B owner in his 20s)
and liz schwenkler (First woman to win US open class nationals, and did so in her 20's.
and noah reitter (you don't know his name yet, BUT YOU WILL) flew two contests this year as guest, tentatively flying 2 next year as a full entrant.
just a few recent examples

but over the past 20 years, we've had one at least one young'n flying at the competition level at any one time. imagine if twenty other clubs posted the exact same numbers! i have to commend hank for his efforts too. he's contributed a lot just down the road.

here's our achievement list for the summer for our Junior membership: Solo(2 new), 2 Hr Flight (1), 5 hr Flight (2), Silver Badge (2), Gold Distance & Diamond Goal (1), Commercial Pilot (1), CFI (1), One day second place Sport Class National flying as a guest (1)

i know there's a lot of 1's and 2's in the list above but if half of the US clubs were posting the numbers above (many are, but not half) then us junior soaring would be in much better shape. My point is, we're doing well, our at least not doing nothing.

i recognize that there is also always room for improvement, and our efforts ARE continually improving.

Also our eye IS on the "prize". cross country is in our culture at harris hill. juniors help with retrieves. juniors go cross country (showing other juniors that they can too). juniors own half of a discus CS and are routinely taken cross country by senior members in a duo. i make it a point to try and take a few kids on flights away from the hill each year.

one thing i think we can improve on as a club is this:
we had saturday's set up as tentative cross country instruction days in our duo discus. it seems like we've gotten away from that this summer, but the first year we tried it, people were taking instruction from tim welles and a few others almost every weekend.

this coming season as my personal contribution to this whole thing, i'll commit to flying cross country with juniors more, and taking a few under my wing to try and groom them for their first 50k and beyond.