How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?

On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 9:16:18 AM UTC-4, ND wrote:

Morning Sean,

I think your comments about mirroring european soaring clubs definitely has some merit. At harris hill, I think a huge thing for our club is that we have a discus CS, and a Duo Discus, as well as a number of pilots who are active in cross country as a baseline. Even if your father/grandfather is not involved in this case, you still end up with access to high performance equipment, and people to guide you along.

my first cross country was with roy mcmaster in our duo. after about 5-7 cross country flights on my own, i flew a HUGE flight (for me at the time) with tim welles and he offered some pointers. i did the flying, he critiqued, and i saw that if i made the right decisions i could go fly cross country all afternoon too.

also, harris hill offers two gliders to junior members free of hourly charge: the discus CS and the SGS 1-34. for those reasons, we are able to expose our junior members to flying and make it very attractive to them from a cost standpoint. so we're getting a younger crowd involved. we have four members under 25 right now who have completed silver badges, and several more who are on their way with one or two of the legs done. The majority of them aren't from soaring families. bottom line, make it affordable, and give them access to the equipment. No way could my dad have afforded normal flying lessons for me when i was a teen. harris hill offered instructional flights when i was junior 13 years ago for 3 bucks a flight. that was offset with commercial rides, and subsidized by senior member rates.

as far as drawing adults to the cross country aspect, it needs to be turnkey, people need the have the ability to advance quickly if they want so that they dont get bored. a good training program is helpful. we do instruction every wednesday night during the flying months so that senior members can get focused weekly instruction. in the winter we do a condor night, where we set up a server and 6-8 members join and fly a cross country flight. we always debrief those and talk about the decision making. it gets everyone involved juiced up for spring.

the formula is the same in your example as mine. there needs to be equipment available, and mentors available. one reason we see people getting into cross country at harris hill is because there are several people who go on a regular basis. it creates a cross country environment. tim welles (W3) is an ironman and flies more regularly, and and in poorer weather, than most.. i think it takes a catalyst in that regard. you need people who can shepherd and motivate others.

HHSC is not the only one doing this.....

Valley Soaring in Middletown, NY (where I fly) does similar.

It started back in the '70's with the commercial operation (also called Valley Soaring) by helping out "kids".
Basically, work a day, get a flight.
Some regulars added some money to a "pot" to help offset some of the costs as well.
This operation was started by Hank Nixon, his wife Dianne & Herb Reilly until it was turned into a club.
Hank & I own SGS-1-26 SN 002 which we let juniors use for "free". They cut the grass in the tiedown, wash the glider, etc.
Junior members at VS pay lower dues and tow rates. Instruction is also a lower rate.

Once they get some more flying time, there are quite a few pilots that fly cross country and will lead other pilots around and help out.
We also take people for cross country in a ASK-21 from our field as well as at contests so they can get a better idea of what goes on.

During the summer, we try to have at least one picnic/month so the "none flying" members of a family can come out and see some of what the "flying member" does for the day.

All of this has been modeled after Euro clubs and tweaked a bit for our site.

Maybe Sean just has not seen some of what IS going on in clubs/operations in the US.

As to "rides" for new people, we usually try and let them do some of the flying while up.
If they do well and the weather is good, then we'll help them get set on final, then put our hands on their shoulders and talk them to a landing. The resulting grin is usually rather large.

PS, yes, I've flown at HHSC lots of times. Many times for the Snowbird as well as contests held there.

PPS, I started flying there in the early '70's, so the current club is the 3rd entity I've flown with at the same airport.