The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

While it may be the case that a volunteer/club model keeps costs low while gliding continues to use 1950's infrastructure and methods, this will not necessarily be the case if/when we begin to adopt alternative technologies at scale.

For a typical winch launch you need as a minimum:
1. A wing runner
2. A signaller
3. A winch driver
4. A recovery driver to fetch the glider when it lands and bring it back to the launch point

None of these are required for self-launching.
Furthermore, turnaround time will be faster with a powered glider in part because it can taxi under its own power.

We need to adopt self-launching with slot booking, as power has been doing since the beginning.

Gliding isn't in decline because it's becoming too expensive. It is in decline because it does not cater to the needs and expectations of modern society. I will say again: fewer people these days are willing to stand around on an airfield for an entire day for perhaps 20 mins in the air.
That's the problem...


....along with the fact that we're not publicly executing those who choose not to pay tax, of course.




On Friday, March 12, 2021 at 8:46:22 AM UTC, Jax wrote:
The clubs are in general decline, not just the gliding clubs but all clubs. Nowadays people want to be independent, autonomous, free to do what they want with no obligations, clubs carry obligations.

Often people take on an activity on their own and then join clubs or societies to share their experiences and improve with like minded people. With gliding you need to join and put up with "whatever" before you get onto your activity, so it is not an easy gradual commitment where you get to experience and fall in love with an activity before you have to put up with the 'family'.

We require a club and federation model to maintain the cost of gliding relatively low, that is achieved by extensive use of free volunteer work. If we had to pay at professional rates for what is necessary to commit gliding, the cost would be prohibitive. Standards, management, governance, maintenance, tuition, certification, competitions, towing etc are largely performed by volunteers. Many people are happy to get involved once they are hooked into gliding but again for the newcomer that is not an attractive model.

So Gliding reliance on clubs puts us in a bad position to attract new people.

Should we have a glide now pay later model? Well I am afraid that is already what we do with the volunteer model, I can't imagine asking current pilots to pay on top of the effort they put to attract new pilots.
We need to face the reality that to increase the freedom and independence of the pilots and thereby attract new pilots, gliding will become more expensive and less accessible.

But does the decline of gliding have anything to do with cost? I doubt, chess had a similar decline and it can't be due to the ever rising cost of the chess sets, right? What we need is Netflix to do a sexy serie like The Queen Gambit but about Gliding then Gliding will raise just like chess is now. Good luck with that, 2 minutes in 50 Shades of Grey was as good as we will ever get.

I think it is mostly about image, what is gliding, who is it for, would you want to be one of them? That is something that needs to be worked on at all levels, federations, clubs, individuals. The Clubhouses with 1970's carpet and rules posted on the walls don't really help.


I don't have a solution but I'll venture offering some suggestions, nothing really new nor ground breaking:
- Make it a family friendly activity so the Husband, Wife, Pops or Kid do not have to take time off from the family every time they go gliding. Whatever it takes, put a swimming pool, skatepark, fitness center, coffee shop or whatever at the airfield so it becomes family friendly.
- Make gliding easy to do anywhere, anytime, most clubs are cliquey, someone coming from another club is not trusted, they need to earn their stripes, they needs check rides, often re-certification, redo what they already did. We need standards and trust in them. When you are in holidays and your wife and daughter want to go shopping for the day you should be able to go to the local gliding club to continue your training where you left it, not a day pushing gliders just to be "assessed" at the end of the day because they have never seen you before.
- Most people are honest, when they have fun they want to share it and repay for it. Make them feel useful, let them do things, make them understand the real value of their contribution, be engaged, heard, proud. From day one, not only once they are known, trusted and respected.
- Rather than advertising and discounting gliding, we need to create an image that is appealing. When people know what they want, they know how to use Google and find us.
- I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with playstations and iphones (I have both and glide 120+ hours per year), we don't need need to trigger an EMP over large cities to bring people into gliding.

On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 10:33:06 UTC, wrote:
While it may be the case that a volunteer/club model keeps costs low while gliding continues to use 1950's infrastructure and methods, this will not necessarily be the case if/when we begin to adopt alternative technologies at scale.

For a typical winch launch you need as a minimum:
1. A wing runner
2. A signaller
3. A winch driver
4. A recovery driver to fetch the glider when it lands and bring it back to the launch point

None of these are required for self-launching.
Furthermore, turnaround time will be faster with a powered glider in part because it can taxi under its own power.

We need to adopt self-launching with slot booking, as power has been doing since the beginning.

Gliding isn't in decline because it's becoming too expensive. It is in decline because it does not cater to the needs and expectations of modern society. I will say again: fewer people these days are willing to stand around on an airfield for an entire day for perhaps 20 mins in the air.
That's the problem...

People have a range of interests and what they do in gliding, instructing, tugs, local soaring, decent cross countries, and you still haven't really elaborated on why you think this 20 minute flight might be a big ambition for a significant proportion. OK for you if that's what you want, but even some early solos still hope they might get an hour and a bit.

Nobody is stopping you doing this for yourself. Several clubs have some self-launching gliders. If you turn up on the potential best day of the year, and there's a queue of 100+ gliders waiting for the first wispy cu to appear before they all go, some on badge or tecord attempts, nobody will object to you going to the front and do your flight first. If launching is already in progress when you turn up, take your place in the queue, or it might fit in ok to let you go from alongside

Even if a club had 100 gliders that are all self-launching you might still have queue issues if you want to be there only an hour predefined by your booking several days earlier, compared to the people rigging at 8 am on a 750 km day. Note that the keen local soarers and trainees in two seaters aren't excluded on those days, they get their flights too.

On less busy days, it wont be a problem for you. But believe it or not, and perhaps you won't, even from early on, more people want to fly on the nice days. Your suggestions don't seem to take much account of that variability of demand.

Regretfully you seem to have misunderstood what has been said.

Nobody is suggesting that standing around on an airfield all day for a 20min flight is an ambition!

The idea is that fewer people would be willing to do this and as such gliding, in its current form, does not satisfy the demands of modern society.

On Friday, March 12, 2021 at 2:15:45 PM UTC, andy l wrote:
On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 10:33:06 UTC, wrote:
While it may be the case that a volunteer/club model keeps costs low while gliding continues to use 1950's infrastructure and methods, this will not necessarily be the case if/when we begin to adopt alternative technologies at scale.

For a typical winch launch you need as a minimum:
1. A wing runner
2. A signaller
3. A winch driver
4. A recovery driver to fetch the glider when it lands and bring it back to the launch point

None of these are required for self-launching.
Furthermore, turnaround time will be faster with a powered glider in part because it can taxi under its own power.

We need to adopt self-launching with slot booking, as power has been doing since the beginning.

Gliding isn't in decline because it's becoming too expensive. It is in decline because it does not cater to the needs and expectations of modern society. I will say again: fewer people these days are willing to stand around on an airfield for an entire day for perhaps 20 mins in the air.
That's the problem...

People have a range of interests and what they do in gliding, instructing, tugs, local soaring, decent cross countries, and you still haven't really elaborated on why you think this 20 minute flight might be a big ambition for a significant proportion. OK for you if that's what you want, but even some early solos still hope they might get an hour and a bit.

Nobody is stopping you doing this for yourself. Several clubs have some self-launching gliders. If you turn up on the potential best day of the year, and there's a queue of 100+ gliders waiting for the first wispy cu to appear before they all go, some on badge or tecord attempts, nobody will object to you going to the front and do your flight first. If launching is already in progress when you turn up, take your place in the queue, or it might fit in ok to let you go from alongside

Even if a club had 100 gliders that are all self-launching you might still have queue issues if you want to be there only an hour predefined by your booking several days earlier, compared to the people rigging at 8 am on a 750 km day. Note that the keen local soarers and trainees in two seaters aren't excluded on those days, they get their flights too.

On less busy days, it wont be a problem for you. But believe it or not, and perhaps you won't, even from early on, more people want to fly on the nice days. Your suggestions don't seem to take much account of that variability of demand.

On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 14:38:06 UTC, wrote:
Regretfully you seem to have misunderstood what has been said.

Nobody is suggesting that standing around on an airfield all day for a 20min flight is an ambition!

The idea is that fewer people would be willing to do this and as such gliding, in its current form, does not satisfy the demands of modern society.

I can see what you've said, more or less the same each time.

I'm describing the way things are, including that demand varies with the weather, and that except at the peak launching time on the busiest days they don't actually impede your wish to do things your own way, either individually or with a group of similar thinkers.

I just think yours might be a smaller market.

I am afraid that I have no idea what your point is, or how it would fit into a discussion about the decline of gliding.
As I see it, everybody has their own individual goals within gliding, yes. I'm just not sure how this is relevant to the discussion.

On Friday, March 12, 2021 at 3:13:47 PM UTC, andy l wrote:
On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 14:38:06 UTC, wrote:
Regretfully you seem to have misunderstood what has been said.

Nobody is suggesting that standing around on an airfield all day for a 20min flight is an ambition!

The idea is that fewer people would be willing to do this and as such gliding, in its current form, does not satisfy the demands of modern society..

I can see what you've said, more or less the same each time.

I'm describing the way things are, including that demand varies with the weather, and that except at the peak launching time on the busiest days they don't actually impede your wish to do things your own way, either individually or with a group of similar thinkers.

I just think yours might be a smaller market.

OK- my thoughts on gliding's decline:

1-Current pilots are getting older and eventually quitting. It happens in every other sport too, and we can't really do anything about it. Viagra doesn't help in this case.
2-New participants are often discouraged by the seemingly endless process of, first, learning to fly and then learning to soar. Exceptions can be made for either pilots who are transitioning from powered aircraft (although they often keep fumbling around looking for the throttle) or pilots of other soaring aircraft (hang gliders, paragliders) who know how to find and work lift but don't know what to do with their feet. (That was me. "Running" on the rudder pedals on touchdown caused the Instructor in the back to emit loud noises.)
3-Learning can be extremely time consuming and stretch out forever. The Albuquerque Soaring Club only offers instruction one day a week, so if there are multiple students, only one or two flights per lesson might be possible. This means it could take MONTHS before getting to solo. And switching duty Instructors every week doesn't help.
4-Commercial instruction can be tailored to the student's schedule, needs and budget, but is often too expensive for younger participants. Older ones, too, but more discretionary money is generally found with more mature individuals
5-Equipment is expensive. Unless the local club or FBO has a decent fleet, you are stuck with a partnership and/or less desirable aircraft. Once again, time, opportunity and demand seem to conspire to reduce the availability of shared equipment, especially during the best soaring conditions.

I am sure there are many other reasons, but these occurred to me first. I also saw the same things at the end of my 28 years in hang gliding as I was transitioning into gliders. Hang gliding has the same problems.

On Friday, March 12, 2021 at 8:08:18 AM UTC-8, Mark Mocho wrote:
OK- my thoughts on gliding's decline:

1-Current pilots are getting older and eventually quitting. It happens in every other sport too, and we can't really do anything about it. Viagra doesn't help in this case.
2-New participants are often discouraged by the seemingly endless process of, first, learning to fly and then learning to soar. Exceptions can be made for either pilots who are transitioning from powered aircraft (although they often keep fumbling around looking for the throttle) or pilots of other soaring aircraft (hang gliders, paragliders) who know how to find and work lift but don't know what to do with their feet. (That was me. "Running" on the rudder pedals on touchdown caused the Instructor in the back to emit loud noises.)
3-Learning can be extremely time consuming and stretch out forever. The Albuquerque Soaring Club only offers instruction one day a week, so if there are multiple students, only one or two flights per lesson might be possible. This means it could take MONTHS before getting to solo. And switching duty Instructors every week doesn't help.
4-Commercial instruction can be tailored to the student's schedule, needs and budget, but is often too expensive for younger participants. Older ones, too, but more discretionary money is generally found with more mature individuals
5-Equipment is expensive. Unless the local club or FBO has a decent fleet, you are stuck with a partnership and/or less desirable aircraft. Once again, time, opportunity and demand seem to conspire to reduce the availability of shared equipment, especially during the best soaring conditions.

I am sure there are many other reasons, but these occurred to me first. I also saw the same things at the end of my 28 years in hang gliding as I was transitioning into gliders. Hang gliding has the same problems.

A welcome advancement unavailable when I was learning is instruction using flight simulators such as Condor. Scott Manley has been doing this successfully for years (https://glidercfi.com/author/smanley/).

Tom

fredag den 12. marts 2021 kl. 15.15.45 UTC+1 skrev andy l:
On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 10:33:06 UTC, wrote:
While it may be the case that a volunteer/club model keeps costs low while gliding continues to use 1950's infrastructure and methods, this will not necessarily be the case if/when we begin to adopt alternative technologies at scale.

For a typical winch launch you need as a minimum:
1. A wing runner
2. A signaller
3. A winch driver
4. A recovery driver to fetch the glider when it lands and bring it back to the launch point

None of these are required for self-launching.
Furthermore, turnaround time will be faster with a powered glider in part because it can taxi under its own power.

We need to adopt self-launching with slot booking, as power has been doing since the beginning.

Gliding isn't in decline because it's becoming too expensive. It is in decline because it does not cater to the needs and expectations of modern society. I will say again: fewer people these days are willing to stand around on an airfield for an entire day for perhaps 20 mins in the air.
That's the problem...

People have a range of interests and what they do in gliding, instructing, tugs, local soaring, decent cross countries, and you still haven't really elaborated on why you think this 20 minute flight might be a big ambition for a significant proportion. OK for you if that's what you want, but even some early solos still hope they might get an hour and a bit.

Nobody is stopping you doing this for yourself. Several clubs have some self-launching gliders. If you turn up on the potential best day of the year, and there's a queue of 100+ gliders waiting for the first wispy cu to appear before they all go, some on badge or tecord attempts, nobody will object to you going to the front and do your flight first. If launching is already in progress when you turn up, take your place in the queue, or it might fit in ok to let you go from alongside

Even if a club had 100 gliders that are all self-launching you might still have queue issues if you want to be there only an hour predefined by your booking several days earlier, compared to the people rigging at 8 am on a 750 km day. Note that the keen local soarers and trainees in two seaters aren't excluded on those days, they get their flights too.

On less busy days, it wont be a problem for you. But believe it or not, and perhaps you won't, even from early on, more people want to fly on the nice days. Your suggestions don't seem to take much account of that variability of demand.

Then all we'll need is the production of a reliable self launch engine that's meant to be used for it.
And since self launchers have been around for decades, why don't we have them? Has anything changed to reason different expectations. Not really.

Gliding is too inexpensive.

On Friday, March 12, 2021 at 2:42:23 PM UTC, wrote:
Gliding is too inexpensive.

You're right.
Gliding is declining because punters turn up to clubs wanting a trial lesson and become so disgusted with how cheap it is that they take their business elsewhere.

On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 10:33:06 UTC, wrote:
While it may be the case that a volunteer/club model keeps costs low while gliding continues to use 1950's infrastructure and methods, this will not necessarily be the case if/when we begin to adopt alternative technologies at scale.

For a typical winch launch you need as a minimum:
1. A wing runner
2. A signaller
3. A winch driver
4. A recovery driver to fetch the glider when it lands and bring it back to the launch point

None of these are required for self-launching.
Furthermore, turnaround time will be faster with a powered glider in part because it can taxi under its own power.

We need to adopt self-launching with slot booking, as power has been doing since the beginning.

Gliding isn't in decline because it's becoming too expensive. It is in decline because it does not cater to the needs and expectations of modern society. I will say again: fewer people these days are willing to stand around on an airfield for an entire day for perhaps 20 mins in the air.
That's the problem...


My club currently operates 5 tugs and 5 K21's among other aircraft. We offer winch and aerotow launching every day - almost. I have carefully considered the pro's and con's of buying a self-launching K21 and have concluded that it does not make any sense to operate one or two of those alongside a fleet of tugs and pure gliders. Unless we totally change the nature of the operation, we still need members to volunteer for all the other tasks you mention (and many more) and we cannot generate a culture where new members think it is ok to turn up for a booked training slot, enjoy their lesson and go home. We ask students to commit to half a day at the club for their lesson - and if they find that too much then they are never going to become active glider pilots. As it happens, I don't think there is a suitable self-launching glider for the purpose - if you use a touring motor glider it is too much like a power plane, and does not feel like introducing someone to gliding, if you want a self-launching sailplane such as a K21 Mi or a DG1001M - I don't believe any have the reliability and robustness required for a training operation. And most of our current instructors are not qualified to fly them.