Links for new people interested in gliding

That would counter a widely held opinion, particularly among airplane pilots, that gliders just get towed up only to glide back down. Many consider the assertion gliders can go XC to be untrue or at least an extremely rare occurrence. Bill D

That pretty much sums it up! We (four members of our club) just gave a presentation of 'What is Soaring' to the local EAA chapter located at the neigboring field. Part of the presentation was a map with concentric circles showing how far away from that airport you could be if you would encounter an engine failure and wanted to arrive at pattern altitude for some of the more popular power planes. They did not believe that we could glide in from more that 15 miles out and still fly a normal pattern. The presentation showed panel shots I took at Parowan with the altimeter at close to 16k ft, the vario at climb while cruising at 70kts. Most of those present had no idea that a glider could fly that high. After the presentation we rigged a SZD55 inside their hangar and again, most could not believe that all controls would couple up automatically. We showed videos of our field activities including aero-tows (ahhh - a Pawnee!!)and winch launches (is that legal??). That winch thing blew them away and several of them still didn't it get even after watching the video as evidenced by the questions like 'how fast does the glider have to be before releasing and then pulling up to 2,000ft?'! The presentation included OLC traces to show how far we can go from SPA - total silence! Most of them don't fly half that distance in their home-builds due to $$$ of AVGAS.
Now - this presentation was given to folks who are somewhat familiar with aviation and I was blown away by how little they knew about our niche of flying. We didn't intend to convert or recruit any of them. Imagine how far one has to scale it back for someone who is completly unfamiliar and new to soaring. As Frank said it: who's your audience.
Could the LGG site be better? I think the contents is good but I would cut out all video scenes showing the pilot with a cannular stuck under his nose! We know that he is not some geriatric dude tethered to an O2 tank while riding an electric scooter through the local supermarket but it may send the wrong message if we are trying to attract the somewhat younger, thrill-seeking crowd. Maybe a few more scenes showing contest grids to indicate that there are more than two or three gliders around and maybe fewer scenes of flying in close proximity to the tarrain which tends to scare the pants off moms and dads who have to decide if they should let their kid(s) enter into that activity.

Uli