On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 3:11:43 PM UTC+3, wrote:
One observation is that on your side of the pond, you refer to introductory flights as "sleigh rides." I've heard that, by default, the prospective pilot doesn't even get a stick to handle!

If that's true, then no wonder the conversion rate is so low! In the era of high rises and budget commercial airline travel, sitting passively in (an ageing) glider just isn't very appealing to young people.

Give them a "trial flight," get them on the controls, and allow them to see themselves flying a high performance ship in the future.

Yeah, that's pretty shocking.

My most popular youtube video (link below) is an intro flight I did a few years ago in the DG1000. The day was not very good (overcast and light wind), but I managed to show a little bit of soaring to at least pretty much maintain altitude, and then gave the student the controls for I guess 15 min or so and just let him play and get a feel for it.

The background was that he'd pretty clearly decided he wanted to fly *something*. He'd been for a trial flight in a Cessna already on the same day, and I tried to sell him on gliders instead.

It must have worked, as he went solo in the DG1000 almost exactly six months later.

That was one of my first flights after getting the instructor ticket. Looking back at it now I can see all kinds of things that I hope I've improved since then! But, all the same, I've had a lot of very positive comments on the video and I hope some of the commenters have been inspired to take a flight themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDZN21xzsRo