Why is Soaring declining

Soaring is declining because the experience of flight is highly accessible.
It is more common to find young people in North America and Europe that have
flown somewhere on a jet, achieving FL350 or greater, than would be the
common youthful experience of many following RAS. I would expect that if I
were to survey the local high school, I would find more than 50% of the
students had flown at least once. In my HS days, this would have been
5-10%. Many of my generation fly because we seek the mystic of flight,
soaring being one of the venues. EAA has a whole host of greybeards,
because propellars have always been more accessible. Flying high, fast, and
far has been de-mystified for a much larger segment of my society. As a
result, I expect the number seeking to soar to be a lesser percentage. As
the population grows however, I also expect the total number of seekers to
grow. Now, how do we reach them?

Frank Whiteley