HG pilot in Brazil goes long - 450 km straight out- new source of SP pilots?

I came to sailplanes after 275 hours of paragliding, which I still love. The hook for me was the fact that in the New York area, it was much easier to score airtime in a glider than in a paraglider. I have thought about this issue of "recruiting" PG and HG pilots for years. One thought is to arrange to "trade a page" in Soaring and the USHPA magazines: each issue could host a page written by a pilot of the other discipline, in order to shed some light on the respective sports, and gain access to each other's membership.

I think the big barrier is the perceived cost of learning to soar / getting the Private Pilot Glider ticket / owning a sailplane. I once sat on the launch at Ellenville not flying, waiting hour after hour for the wind to sit down, and watched sailplanes soaring the ridge over our heads. When I asked my fellow PG / HG pilots why we weren't doing that, the answer was "Sailplanes are a rich man's game." Give me a page in "Hang Gliding and Paragliding Magazine" to do a cost per hour comparison and I can clear that up. But that's a message we need time to communicate repeatedly.

Another barrier is lack of "hipness." Take a look at the USHPA magazine and you'll see what I mean -- it makes Soaring Magazine look like a poorly designed high school newspaper, or some geriatric version of that. Soaring Mag does not make soaring look "sexy," I'm sad to say. We need to hire a young, hip designer and a young, hip editor and let them have their way with our rag.

Lots of good ideas in this thread. I, for one, would be happy to "mentor" PG pilots into our little sport. A lot of these guys and gals are already really excellent soaring pilots who understand the air and how to soar in a truly low-performance (8:1 L/D) aircraft. Give them a good taste of 35:1, a two hour XC flight in the ASK 21, a $15,000 first-generation glass ship and a $30 tow and you will have more members of the SSA...at least a few more.....

On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 3:43:03 PM UTC-4, gotovkotzepkoi wrote:
"Another barrier is lack of "hipness." Take a look at the USHPA magazine
and you'll see what I mean -- it makes Soaring Magazine look like a
poorly designed high school newspaper, or some geriatric version of
that. Soaring Mag does not make soaring look "sexy," I'm sad to say. We
need to hire a young, hip designer and a young, hip editor and let them
have their way with our rag."

Paul hits the nail right on the head. Sailplanes are perceived as an old
man's game. Soaring Magazine is about as sexy as Popular Mechanics. No,
I take that back, Popular Mechanics is sexier than Soaring Magazine. One
small example: the Final Glide section. Ok, it's sad when people die but
Jesus, get it out of the magazine. It's like people who meet at the
mailbox at the retirement community where the first topic is: who died
last night? And let's take the upcoming film "Cloudbase". It's likely to
be the first really inspirational soaring film to come out of the US.
But who is depicted in the film? Old people. That simply reinforces the
opinion that many HG and PGing people have. If you want to motivate
young people from the HG and PG community then try something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKBk1Bmsm8M
..all young people here.




--
gotovkotzepkoi

I guess when i started flying over 40 years ago I wasn't paying so much attention to what age everyone was. I was more interested in flying. Then i switched to sailplanes a few years ago. You sure are worried about your image.. My club has people of all ages and you would be surprised that none of us wear bibs unless we are eating a steamed Lobster!

On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 3:56:20 PM UTC-4, HGXC wrote:
On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 3:43:03 PM UTC-4, gotovkotzepkoi wrote:
"Another barrier is lack of "hipness."
Paragliding definitely has better filmmakers http://youtu.be/L62faWn-sa8

GB, you are right, I have never been interested in paragliding but after watching that video it makes you want to give it a try.