Wow that's interesting - can yo send me how that one was organized - to my email address.
I think we need to look at all the soaring groups and see how to best get them flying.
We do pretty well getting older retired guys to fly
(I am close)
but what about:
High school kids
College kids
young workers with and without families
Adults with grown kids who maybe flew when they were younger (Me)
....................
each has it's own dynamic to get them to fly - and a different dynamic to keep them flying.
Bottom line - we need more people flying - how do we get them to show up. I am pretty sure there is not one right answer - we need lots of answers and attempts.
WH
This is what I've been wrestling with. I'm a new glider pilot, living in an area where almost no-one flies gliders (one other guy about 12 miles away). I live in the middle of an Indian Reservation in MT, with two "major" cities (populations about 73,000 and 23,000) over an hour's drive away. The local area holds tremendous ridge soaring potential, I think. However, there is a lot of poverty around here, and sparse population. How does one get people involved locally?
Ideas I've tossed around, but haven't implemented yet, include advertising at the local FBOs (there are 3 airports within a 20 mile radius), advertising with flyers in the FBOs of the airports at the two "major" cities, contacting local news media to do a "local interest segment", working out some sort of partnership/arrangement with the local Boys & Girls club, which is pretty active, possibly getting some celebrities who live locally to participate or get involved in some way or another.
My hope is that we can operate a club in a way that makes flying sailplanes "affordable" and doable for most people of moderate means. There is a stigma in the general population that flying is expensive. And for the most part, they are right. But I believe, that if it is done right, we could do something sustainable here locally, in a way that won't cost an arm and a leg. We need to get young people back into flying again, and it is my hope that flying gliders could be a way of doing this. We just have to get something "off the ground", in order to get some momentum. And that takes a bit of money.