Contests the end-all?

On Wed, 19 May 2010 17:40:02 -0400, "Morgans"
wrote:

As a student pilot, thinking more about gliders lately, I started reading
this group. I can't help but notice that talk of contests seems to dominate
the subjects here.

I think I would enjoy gliders just for the fun of flying, and seeing what
you could do individually, and for the beauty of silent flight. Is it so
necessary to fly in contests to have fun?

How many people here just fly gliders without flying contests?

I'm also a student (a very slow student), at a gliderport which has
frequent races (Williams). I think having the racers around is a plus:

- There are people around to encourage me and tell me tales of their
learning process.

- I get to see many different kinds of gliders.

- They (both the gliderport operators and the glider pilots) put
together various kinds of education - web pages, seminars, talks - about
various aspects of gliding/soaring that I will someday need to know, if
I ever learn how to use a rudder.

- They bring income to the gliderport, so it can stay in business and
pay its employees. I don't want my instructor to be worrying about how
he is going to pay for his next meal when he should be worrying about
how I am going to mess up next time.


I can't say that contesting appeals to me, but who knows, maybe it will
someday.

There's a similar situation in amateur radio, which has a lot of
contests. Sometimes it seems like too much print space is devoted to
contests, but I can just skip over it, and I have to admit that
contesters are responsible for many technological advances - better
antennas, better encoding mechanisms, propagation studies, etc.