To Pawnee or not to Pawnee...that is the question...

"John Smith" wrote in message
. ..
Bill Daniels wrote:

If the tug costs the members big money then, since the members are the
club, it costs the club big money. It's financial shell game to say the
tug is a"break even" operation.

I don't get your logic. *Somebody* has to pay the tug. If it isn't the
pilot behind the tug, then it's the club as a whole. Do you advocate that
the non-flying pilots should subsidize the flying ones? Do you advocate
low tow rates subsidized by high club membership fees? Do you think high
membership fees would lead to a growth in club membership?

Of course it makes sense for individual members to pay for the services they
recieve. That's just the nuts and bolts of club finances. It's up to a
club membership to decide how they allocate costs and fees. Whatever they
choose, there's no right or wrong answer as long as it's legal and the
majority of the membership agrees. Having one activity subsidize another is
fine if the membership agrees.

But don't stop with the nuts and bolts, stand back and look at the big
picture the way a prospecitve new member looks at it. They ask, "What's it
going to cost me to fly gliders with this organization?" The cost of tows
is a big part of the answer. If the total cost is too high, they go another
direction. If that happens too often, the remaining members are burdened
with a bigger and bigger share of the cost of a tug.

I'm just saying look at it both ways and don't try to sweep the real costs
of operating a tug under the rug by saying, "Well, it pays for itself so
we're OK." If a smaller and smaller number of members are paying the cost,
you're not OK, you're in a financial death spiral.

A winch can be used to generate a substantial revenue stream while reducing
the individual members launch cost - a big win-win. That revenue stream can
be used to subsidize a tug. For sure, it won't work the other way around.

Bill Daniels

Bill Daniels wrote:

But don't stop with the nuts and bolts, stand back and look at the big
picture the way a prospecitve new member looks at it. They ask, "What's it
going to cost me to fly gliders with this organization?" The cost of tows
is a big part of the answer. If the total cost is too high, they go another

The total cost is always the same, there's no free lunch. If your tows
are too cheap, then the membership fees must be higher, unless you have
some magic money print press in your basement. I strongly believe that
high membership fees are much more prohibitive for new members than tow
fees.

My club bills the true towing cost. On the other hand, we don't bill the
glider usage by time but by the membership fee, because glider ownership
costs the same whether the glider is flown or not.

A winch can be used to generate a substantial revenue stream while reducing
the individual members launch cost - a big win-win.

You don't have to convince me of the advantages of a winch, after all,
I'm a winch driver. And I just *love* those catapult take offs. But as I
said in another post, you can't go cross country from the winch at every
site. At ours, for example, we mostly can't, so we use the winch mainly
for training. As landing practice is a major part of the student
training, a winch does reduce training cost tremendously. As you only
need one launch for an 8 hour cross country flight, tow cost isn't such
a big problem for cross country flying.

"John Smith" wrote in message
. ..

You don't have to convince me of the advantages of a winch, after all, I'm
a winch driver. And I just *love* those catapult take offs. But as I said
in another post, you can't go cross country from the winch at every site.
At ours, for example, we mostly can't, so we use the winch mainly for
training. As landing practice is a major part of the student training, a
winch does reduce training cost tremendously. As you only need one launch
for an 8 hour cross country flight, tow cost isn't such a big problem for
cross country flying.

I don't argue against aero tow. There will always be time and places where
it's the best.

So why can't you get away XC from your winch?

Bill Daniels

Bill Daniels wrote:

So why can't you get away XC from your winch?

Our runway is 2000ft. We can use about 2300ft of cable which gives us
1300ft of height if wind conditions are ideal, more typically 1150ft and
sometimes only 1000ft if conditions are poor. This just isn't enough to
reach our nearest thermal, simple as that. Not everybody is operating
from a 5000ft runway and not every airfield was placed with thermals in
mind.