Cheap sailplanes

tango4 wrote:
The 'which glider should we make cheaply' , 'glider classes' and some of
the traditional 'winter threads' seem to be based on the premise that if we
could build a 40:1 sailplane for some nominal amount then the steady decline
in worldwide sailplane pilot numbers can be stemmed.

I am yet to be convinced that aircraft cost is the major threshold to entry
into the sport of soaring. I remain firmly convinced that even if we came up
with a near zero cost aircraft we would do little more than temporarily halt
the decline.

Absolutely. The market will work for gliding as it does with most
things. Already, I know of three 25-30 year old glass gliders bought by
young men from deceased estates for trivial prices (a perfectly good
PIK-20B for $12000, for example). Cost isn't/won't be the problem.
Real prices will go on falling as the number of available gliders grows
at a faster rate than the number of buyers.

In the UK annual membership of a golf club costs about the same as joining a
gliding club and flying club ships for the same period.

Ditto for a dinghy sailing club - based on joining a club and renting
dingies.

Our club runs a 'scholarship' incentive for a number of student pilots each
year, basically they fly for free, their bills being carried by the rest of
the membership. We don't have hundreds of applicants for the scholarships,
just sufficient.

Most operations have a continuous stream of intro riders, the conversion
rate to sailplane pilots is astonishingly low though, in the order of a few
percent.

Todays youth have more disposable income than most of us could ever have
dreamed of at their age and in the future they are likely to have more
leisure time and even more money. Flying has to become something that
youngsters 'want to do' it has to become cool. Rather than sticking with the
old way of doing things perhaps we should fire every club committee member
on the planet over 30 and let the youngsters with backwards baseball caps,
wrap around shades and baggy pants drag soaring into the 21st century. Us
old farts are not doing too good a job of stewardship if you ask me.

We need a new approach.

No we don't. It won't die with us. There will always be a few young
men who are attracted to soaring. Many will come to it later though
because its attractions are available in other sports as well these days.

Meanwhile old committee members are needed to steward the assets of the
clubs. What the young get for free won't be appreciated and the
embarrassing sight of old farts offering metaphorical boiled lollies to
teenagers is to be avoided at all costs. When they win the fight over
our dead bodies they'll actually care for what they get their hands on.
What will make youngsters want to be part of soaring is us grey heads
refusing to let them have it. The ones it will be worth passing it on
to will be those who care enough to fight us for it.

And we're doing a great job at stewardship. The major threat to the
existence of many clubs is property development attempting to drive us
from our airfields. How useful are teenagers in fighting those battles?
A committe of 20-somethings would lose at the first round and what
would be left then? Give me a bunch of old men who have the patience
and persistence and experience and rat-cunning to win these civic battles.

Certainly the young will take over in the end - but why should I/we make
our sport unpleasant for ourselves by changing all the things about it
which the majority of us enjoy? I'm only here once the same as the
young. Why should their preferences have priority? They can have it
later and remake it any way they like. They can buy my gliders cheaply
too. But not yet.

Graeme Cant