On Friday, March 6, 2015 at 10:56:45 AM UTC-5, GB wrote:
On Friday, March 6, 2015 at 10:32:22 AM UTC-5, Paul Villinski wrote:
I wasn't thinking about the relative safety of paragliders versus sailplanes -- but about how effectively a beautiful, extremely well-produced video like this promotes the sport to younger people. There's not much comparable to JB Chandelier's films in our world of sailplanes -- this is about the closest I've found; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egBWcpthuMw or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rCtnTXo3SE
On the whole, we seem to have a talent for presenting our amazing sport in a very bland way, and largely devoid of younger people.

Interestingly, as of 2010, the vast majority of PG pilots were in their 40's and 50's, with more pilots in their 60's than in their 20's. In terms of fatalities, a quick glance shows more fatalities in sailplanes most years than in paragliders and hang gliders combined, with an average of 6 per year in sailplanes since the 1990's according to the SSF. The size of pilot populations in SSA and USHPA are roughly the same.

I keep trying to bring my paragliding buddies, now in their late forties and early fifties, into our gliding club, but I haven't succeeded yet. I think part of this has to do with the way our sport is perceived...and my love of soaring and sailplanes always makes me wish it were otherwise. Soaring is so damn cool -- why do we fail to communicate that?

I think I know. In most sailplane videos the pilots look scared. And never like they are having fun. Smile for the camera. Cool isn't grimacing in the face of danger cool is laughing. Early 90's there were a handful of skydiving movies that did nothing for new student starts. However Point Break, which was a surfing/bank robbing movie with a little bit of skydiving got tons of people to make a jump. Difference was Point Break showed people having fun in the air, the others tried to be all serious and scary. JB Chandlier's videos do the same some of the flying is easy some of it very high level all of it is portrayed as fun and scenic.

For what its worth Paragliding isn't in a growth mode anymore ....Its static in the US.

Dennis