Ulrich....

The situation you describe is somthing that many parents and juniors
deal with all the time. I was lucky enough to start flying (when 14)
at an operation that supported juniors, and all my local clubs have
always been like that. My experience in other places, however, hasn't
been as great.

I've flown at several commercial operations throughout the years, all
of them seemingly convinced my sole purpose in attempting to rent their
equipment was to break it. Standard procedure when checking out
juniors seems to be multiple rope breaks at places I don't consider
safe at all (and, as an instructor, would never put a student, pilot
getting a BFR or spring checkout, ect. in). At one location, after
satisfying their instructor, I was actually complemented. At another,
after the 3rd ropebreak in a row this one in a position that was beyond
my not safe level (and into my punch the instructor in the face area) I
walked away no longer interested in flying there.

Incidently, two things came from that. One, the instructor recently
ran for the SSA Board on a "pro juniors" position. Its amazing what
people will say to try to get elected. Thank god he didnt. Secondly,
a pilot was recently killed because of a rope break at that airport. I
called a friend, only to find out that the ropebreak occured at the
same place and altitude where I had been given an intentional
ropebreak. I guess now I'm glad I'm still alive today.

In many places, there seems to be an anti-youth culture. I can
remember one MAJOR figure in soaring and a prominent author write an
article about how he thought DPE's weren't following the PTS as they
should be. All of his examples cited juniors who he felt shouldnt be a
private pilot, or even a CFIG. I think that on the whole, the majority
of pilots across all fields of aviation support youth, but there is a
small minority that dosen't. The problem with this is the minority is
vocal, and the majority in this country just haven't been doing whats
needed to be done to fix the situation.

Help is on the way, however. Watch this forumn for in the next few
weeks as myself and several others are working to form a major new
organization for Junior soaring in the US, and you should be seeing
somthing soon.

Kevin Christner, CFIG
Jantar Std. 2 N932KC