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

Originally Posted by Sarah[_2_]

On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 11:00:12 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Can't think of a single logical reason to have a separate "female" class. What is this? 1953?
"

I can't either. Soaring competition doesn't require muscle unless you're talking about rigging/derigging. As far as I know that's not scored.

I thought it was suggested just for fairness... I can't even get close to fitting in a Discus A... My 200+ pounds creates a lot of trim drag and a higher sink rate/slower climbs in any aircraft I fly... Most girls have an unfair advantage!!! They're kicking my butt.

On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 2:53:00 PM UTC-7, David Hirst wrote:

I think there is something that each of us could do in increasing the conversion rate of new XC and racing pilots.

In New Zealand, we're seeing the same decline as pretty much everywhere but there are a couple of programmes in place which might (just might) turn things around. Off-topic slightly, getting the kids re-engaged is about getting them to form their own gliding-and-social organisation (youthglide.org.nz) and that seems to be working quite well. I think Abby Delore gave a talk about Youthglide at the SSA conference a couple of years ago.

Back on-topic. After much head-scratching, a bunch of pilots decided that the key to retaining pilots was to get as many as possible into X Country - not denying that there's always a place for the pilots who just like to fly locally but it's the ones who go further who don't tend to drop out of the sport.

The next question was how to do get people into XC. One answer is to lower the (perceived) barriers to flying contest tasks. Most club members have access to club gliders but it's the whole mountain of "there's no way I could fly that far" that seemed to pose the biggest hurdle.

As a consequence, the Racing Committee have made a major revamp to the rules this season, to the effect that contest classes aren't so much based on "Std/15m", "Club", "18/20m" etc. but more "Beginner", "Intermediate" and "Advanced", i.e. based on pilot ability rather than glider performance. You can still fly with the big boys if you want (and get the points and prizes), but you can also turn up in a 18m glider and enter the "beginner" contest. We trialled the scheme informally last season and got a good number of new pilots to come along to contests and fly 75 - 150km tasks. Unsurprisingly, they had a blast! It'll be interesting to see the results this season..

Another thing that may help the decline is the sort of coaching programme that Australia is using for its cross-country pilots, which came out of a whole bunch of work that the Australian Institute of Sport developed, completely unrelated to gliding.

Interesting times. Watch this space.

DH

Interesting ideas. It has been tried at a small scale in the US in places with good effect as far as I can tell. Maybe there is something that can be done more formally. I do get the sense that people don't want to spend too much time at the "kids table" so being able to hang with the more experienced pilots (in the air and on the ground) seems to be important aspect of all of this, That was the potential to learn from more experienced pilots is opened up.

9B

My $0.02 from a newly mint pilot aspiring for XC.

First of all I think there is a unique internal fortitude that glider pilots have. And let me also say, I think it’s even more so for the XC pilot. I have met pilots from varying skill and experience that some gave me the impression that they were terrified of XC. Being a student gave me a unique advantage of asking questions versus someone with experience would probably not have asked those types of questions I had asked. I also realize that individuals have their own comfort level. Now with that said, I think that internal fortitude can be broken down into two areas; churn and retention of when pilots either do not seek XC or the student drops out. Either way, it affects long-term retention.

I do not know if there are two ideas or paths to solo but I was on the path of training to know almost all there is about soaring prior to solo. I think I would have stopped training if I did not know the end game of XC. I think a student should solo as soon as practical with the guidance that much more training is ahead. The student will discover more quickly if they have the internal fortitude to continue. To over-train a student for solo creates a long path for later discouragement and only ties up club time. The only advantage seems to be the clubs increase in revenue or CFI’s log time.

Now for XC: My last CFI said if I did not XC and only glided around the field that I would eventually give up soaring. This is from a well-known, high hr, high student CFI.
From his past experience as well as my observation of the millennia’s and Gen-X, I think as others have mentioned that exposure to XC from the beginning of training is key. I do think the internal fortitude required of experienced or seasoned pilots for XC is greater. Or put another way, the older the pilot the longer it takes to break the home field barrier.
I could be in this later category, however, I also have not completed my Silver Badge. I could have attempted XC and landed out by now, but (1) I know the hassle of retrieve of my heavy glider, (2) gaining more comfort with new vario and GPS, (3) just enjoying soaring around, (4) realize I need to work on perfect thermaling skills, (5) would like booming conditions for first XC to ensure success. I currently do a lot of scratching and only do this around home field and would not attempt during XC. But with average cloud base of 3k and average glide at 2-2.5K, that does not give much room to travel far and have a good margin for land out.

Oh, another observation which could be an obstacle to XC is many gliders trailers I’ve seen at clubs I would not pull down the road. Either the pilot is experienced enough to get back home, or does not care about leaving area, or is older or out of shape and does not want to deal with retrieve. Trailer care and upkeep should be talked about more at clubs and with students. If a student never hears anything about trailer maintenance then acquires own trailer, I think they are more likely to neglect. As well as if they see neglected trailers about, they may follow suit out of sub-consciousness.

Once I have achieved my silver badge, I would like to enter a XC comp. And I think the badges are all a pilot needs for motivation prior to first comp. I do like the idea of team comps where an experience pilot has two less experienced pilots to bring along. I also like the idea of fun comps, and fun fly in’s that have an element of XC. I also think a yearly training camp/comp made up of 2 place gliders would be fun and very beneficial. One of the biggest obstacles I see to camps and comps is proximity. Within 300 miles would be ideal, but at least each region. If one compares any other sports, soaring has less comps.

I was fortunate to have been able to visit 6 different facilities to soar at after acquiring my ticket. The people I have met and the views, and tips have been great. I’m at the point where I’m acquiring skill, and do not foresee myself as CFI or top comp pilot, but I hope I can pass something to others to help our sport.

Great observations, Casey.
Jim

On 12/21/2016 10:39 AM, JS wrote:
Great observations, Casey.
Jim


Agreed, and FWIW here's one glider pilot's version of that grade school
english exercise, "What I did Over My Summer Vacation" entitled...

"How I 'Got Into' XC soaring"

I include my experience here strictly by way of noting that at the outset I
had no clues about, knowledge of, or 'plans for using' my PP/Glider rating. I
was simply one of those kids thoroughly enamored with flight, and who - upon
graduating college - happened to bumble into a sailplane pilot (my office
mate) who invited me to that side of the shared field before I'd had a chance
to make a cold call over at the power FBO. That was in 1972. It got me into
the air sooner, at less cash-flow. I never did obtain a power license, and I'm
still a flying nut.

I should also add that, despite 'being a hardcore flying nut' I was already
having slight problems imagining my power flying future beyond the license:
$100 hamburgers forever? aerobatics? ???. Nut that I was I was already
wondering if/how fight might retain its imperative power over me.

My soaring introduction/lessons obviated similar wonderings ever arising.
Somewhen during basic instruction, I learned 'that XC existed,' and, that 'I
would be expected to do it...someday.' IOW, XC was to soaring, as breathing
was to life. The way it was presented made perfectly good sense back then,
despite me being 'relatively normal' in that my second question about soaring
was, "What do you do when you can't find lift?"

My (sole) instructor 'taught me all I needed to basically know about selecting
good fields,' in a few sentences during my ab-initio training (probably mostly
to shut me up). I accidentally/unintentionally/successfully put his summary
knowledge to use within a month of obtaining my certificate, and exactly one
week before I, my instructor, and his other newly-licensed partner in our
1-26, went to a 3-day fun contest, whereat I completed my day's O&R task at
the blazing speed of 12 mph (the 1-26 winner that day averaging ~30). My
instructor landed out on his day (other 1-26s finished). We each had a blast,
and over the course of those two weeks, every significant and fundamental
question related to the sensibility-of/risks-accompanying XC that may have
been fermenting beneath my fevered brow, had vanished forever.

IOW, XC *was* a Big Deal, but in ways Completely Unrelated to my initial,
self-preservatory, ignorance-based concerns. Looking back, it was undoubtedly
then that for me the sport set its lifetime hook.

Bob W.

On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 12:21:35 PM UTC-6, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 9:39:44 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Reply to all 3 posts.

Sean, how much fun actually flying gliders is doesn't matter that much to the initial "sale" An interested visitor will at most get a 20 minute "sleigh ride" in a glider but spend hours on the ground at the airfield. The thing that makes the "deal" possible is the environment at the gliderport.. Unfortunately, most are fly blown armpits of creation populated by not very friendly people. Guess which one makes the biggest impression?. What to do is obvious.

Yes, participation in all aspects of aviation is shrinking. Our bad press is mostly to blame. From the evening news to stand up comics, people are being frightened away from aviation. All of aviation needs to mount a PR campaign to offset this. We also need to become absolutely militant about reducing accidents. We are far too tolerant of unsafe practices.

Dan, be very careful about overgeneralising. I did an informal survey in shopping malls observing about 1000 young people. My numbers say only about 10% were fiddling with cellphones. That's still a big number but it's not 100%. My impression is they do this when they are bored and have nothing else to do. We can give them something more interesting.

Keep the overall numbers in mind. If 1,000 people walked onto US glider operations seeking flight training our infrastructure would be saturated. We just need to figure out how to find that 1,000 in a population of 310 million.

Bill Daniels

Bill and I talked about this at the Nationals a couple of years ago. There are three related challenges: intake, conversion and churn.

- Intake is the number of people taking an introductory ride, or are ins some way given an initial introduction to the sport.

- Conversion, is the percentage of people who transition to solo, licensed pilot, XC pilot, racing pilot.

- Churn, is the number of people who get all the way through the conversion "funnel", are in the sport for a (short or long) while then drop out.

The balance of these three effects determine the size of the racing pilot pool year by year.

A big chunk of churn is related to demographics and aging of the baby boom, some is related to the pressures of modern life. Retaining an older pilot for a few more years only buys you a few more years, but given the current profile of the pilot community there might be some work to do.

Intake is expensive, especially with a conversion rate like ours, which IIRC, is around 1% of those who are introduced to the sport actually become a licensed pilot, let alone a regular XC or racing pilot. This is partly a time and money issue, but at the higher levels it is one of finding a mentor to bring you along. At the RC meeting last year we hosted a gathering of local XC, OLC and racing pilots. The most profound comments were around the lack of an onramp to racing, to lean the skills by flying (following, really) a better pilot to see how it's done.

Team flying using the radio is allowed at the regional level. For better or worse Flarm following has reduces some of the "where'd you go?" issues associated with flying with someone. It's kind of fun to run around the course with other pilots from time to time. Bruno's hybrid events have seen a higher proportion of pilots flying at least one, but seemingly more that one, of the assigned tasks as a learning experience - and because it allows you to fly with buddies.

I think there is something that each of us could do in increasing the conversion rate of new XC and racing pilots.

9B

Andy, we don't disagree at all. Until and unless we solve the intake and conversion problems, churn ("retention") is moot. While it's absolutely true that getting new pilots into XC will increase retention, we have to have the new pilots.

How about a Red Bull glider race?

Boggs

On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 7:21:35 PM UTC+1, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 9:39:44 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Reply to all 3 posts.

Sean, how much fun actually flying gliders is doesn't matter that much to the initial "sale" An interested visitor will at most get a 20 minute "sleigh ride" in a glider but spend hours on the ground at the airfield. The thing that makes the "deal" possible is the environment at the gliderport.. Unfortunately, most are fly blown armpits of creation populated by not very friendly people. Guess which one makes the biggest impression?. What to do is obvious.

Yes, participation in all aspects of aviation is shrinking. Our bad press is mostly to blame. From the evening news to stand up comics, people are being frightened away from aviation. All of aviation needs to mount a PR campaign to offset this. We also need to become absolutely militant about reducing accidents. We are far too tolerant of unsafe practices.

Dan, be very careful about overgeneralising. I did an informal survey in shopping malls observing about 1000 young people. My numbers say only about 10% were fiddling with cellphones. That's still a big number but it's not 100%. My impression is they do this when they are bored and have nothing else to do. We can give them something more interesting.

Keep the overall numbers in mind. If 1,000 people walked onto US glider operations seeking flight training our infrastructure would be saturated. We just need to figure out how to find that 1,000 in a population of 310 million.

Bill Daniels

Bill and I talked about this at the Nationals a couple of years ago. There are three related challenges: intake, conversion and churn.

- Intake is the number of people taking an introductory ride, or are ins some way given an initial introduction to the sport.

- Conversion, is the percentage of people who transition to solo, licensed pilot, XC pilot, racing pilot.

- Churn, is the number of people who get all the way through the conversion "funnel", are in the sport for a (short or long) while then drop out.

The balance of these three effects determine the size of the racing pilot pool year by year.

A big chunk of churn is related to demographics and aging of the baby boom, some is related to the pressures of modern life. Retaining an older pilot for a few more years only buys you a few more years, but given the current profile of the pilot community there might be some work to do.

Intake is expensive, especially with a conversion rate like ours, which IIRC, is around 1% of those who are introduced to the sport actually become a licensed pilot, let alone a regular XC or racing pilot. This is partly a time and money issue, but at the higher levels it is one of finding a mentor to bring you along. At the RC meeting last year we hosted a gathering of local XC, OLC and racing pilots. The most profound comments were around the lack of an onramp to racing, to lean the skills by flying (following, really) a better pilot to see how it's done.

Team flying using the radio is allowed at the regional level. For better or worse Flarm following has reduces some of the "where'd you go?" issues associated with flying with someone. It's kind of fun to run around the course with other pilots from time to time. Bruno's hybrid events have seen a higher proportion of pilots flying at least one, but seemingly more that one, of the assigned tasks as a learning experience - and because it allows you to fly with buddies.

I think there is something that each of us could do in increasing the conversion rate of new XC and racing pilots.

9B

Improvement at all stages -- intake, conversion & churn, should be improved by participants seeing clear goals ahead that they could achieve. For the most part this is XC flying in a nice ship, but there are other goals people could set themselves.

One observation is that on your side of the pond, you refer to introductory flights as "sleigh rides." I've heard that, by default, the prospective pilot doesn't even get a stick to handle!

If that's true, then no wonder the conversion rate is so low! In the era of high rises and budget commercial airline travel, sitting passively in (an ageing) glider just isn't very appealing to young people.

Give them a "trial flight," get them on the controls, and allow them to see themselves flying a high performance ship in the future.

That seed needs to be planted right from the get-go. Once it is planted, their own enthusiasm will do the rest.

On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 3:11:43 PM UTC+3, wrote:
One observation is that on your side of the pond, you refer to introductory flights as "sleigh rides." I've heard that, by default, the prospective pilot doesn't even get a stick to handle!

If that's true, then no wonder the conversion rate is so low! In the era of high rises and budget commercial airline travel, sitting passively in (an ageing) glider just isn't very appealing to young people.

Give them a "trial flight," get them on the controls, and allow them to see themselves flying a high performance ship in the future.

Yeah, that's pretty shocking.

My most popular youtube video (link below) is an intro flight I did a few years ago in the DG1000. The day was not very good (overcast and light wind), but I managed to show a little bit of soaring to at least pretty much maintain altitude, and then gave the student the controls for I guess 15 min or so and just let him play and get a feel for it.

The background was that he'd pretty clearly decided he wanted to fly *something*. He'd been for a trial flight in a Cessna already on the same day, and I tried to sell him on gliders instead.

It must have worked, as he went solo in the DG1000 almost exactly six months later.

That was one of my first flights after getting the instructor ticket. Looking back at it now I can see all kinds of things that I hope I've improved since then! But, all the same, I've had a lot of very positive comments on the video and I hope some of the commenters have been inspired to take a flight themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDZN21xzsRo

Every place I've flown in the USA has offered the stick to the
customer. In my experience the term, "sleigh ride", refers to flights
when there is no lift available. In that case we suggest a different
time or day for the flight. Often the suggestion is accepted but just
as often not. A lot of the people who come for a ride are simply
checking off a box on their bucket list and there's no doubt they won't
be returning. For those who show the spark of enthusiasm, we go far out
of our way to encourage them to return.

In my case, as a prior experienced formation pilot, I was given the
stick from the beginning of the takeoff roll to the end of the rollout.
The hook was deeply set for me and I immediately began taking lessons
culminating in a commercial add-on rating.

On 8/17/2015 6:11 AM, wrote:
On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 7:21:35 PM UTC+1, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 9:39:44 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Reply to all 3 posts.

Sean, how much fun actually flying gliders is doesn't matter that much to the initial "sale" An interested visitor will at most get a 20 minute "sleigh ride" in a glider but spend hours on the ground at the airfield. The thing that makes the "deal" possible is the environment at the gliderport. Unfortunately, most are fly blown armpits of creation populated by not very friendly people. Guess which one makes the biggest impression?. What to do is obvious.

Yes, participation in all aspects of aviation is shrinking. Our bad press is mostly to blame. From the evening news to stand up comics, people are being frightened away from aviation. All of aviation needs to mount a PR campaign to offset this. We also need to become absolutely militant about reducing accidents. We are far too tolerant of unsafe practices.

Dan, be very careful about overgeneralising. I did an informal survey in shopping malls observing about 1000 young people. My numbers say only about 10% were fiddling with cellphones. That's still a big number but it's not 100%. My impression is they do this when they are bored and have nothing else to do. We can give them something more interesting.

Keep the overall numbers in mind. If 1,000 people walked onto US glider operations seeking flight training our infrastructure would be saturated. We just need to figure out how to find that 1,000 in a population of 310 million.

Bill Daniels
Bill and I talked about this at the Nationals a couple of years ago. There are three related challenges: intake, conversion and churn.

- Intake is the number of people taking an introductory ride, or are ins some way given an initial introduction to the sport.

- Conversion, is the percentage of people who transition to solo, licensed pilot, XC pilot, racing pilot.

- Churn, is the number of people who get all the way through the conversion "funnel", are in the sport for a (short or long) while then drop out.

The balance of these three effects determine the size of the racing pilot pool year by year.

A big chunk of churn is related to demographics and aging of the baby boom, some is related to the pressures of modern life. Retaining an older pilot for a few more years only buys you a few more years, but given the current profile of the pilot community there might be some work to do.

Intake is expensive, especially with a conversion rate like ours, which IIRC, is around 1% of those who are introduced to the sport actually become a licensed pilot, let alone a regular XC or racing pilot. This is partly a time and money issue, but at the higher levels it is one of finding a mentor to bring you along. At the RC meeting last year we hosted a gathering of local XC, OLC and racing pilots. The most profound comments were around the lack of an onramp to racing, to lean the skills by flying (following, really) a better pilot to see how it's done.

Team flying using the radio is allowed at the regional level. For better or worse Flarm following has reduces some of the "where'd you go?" issues associated with flying with someone. It's kind of fun to run around the course with other pilots from time to time. Bruno's hybrid events have seen a higher proportion of pilots flying at least one, but seemingly more that one, of the assigned tasks as a learning experience - and because it allows you to fly with buddies.

I think there is something that each of us could do in increasing the conversion rate of new XC and racing pilots.

9B
Improvement at all stages -- intake, conversion & churn, should be improved by participants seeing clear goals ahead that they could achieve. For the most part this is XC flying in a nice ship, but there are other goals people could set themselves.

One observation is that on your side of the pond, you refer to introductory flights as "sleigh rides." I've heard that, by default, the prospective pilot doesn't even get a stick to handle!

If that's true, then no wonder the conversion rate is so low! In the era of high rises and budget commercial airline travel, sitting passively in (an ageing) glider just isn't very appealing to young people.

Give them a "trial flight," get them on the controls, and allow them to see themselves flying a high performance ship in the future.

That seed needs to be planted right from the get-go. Once it is planted, their own enthusiasm will do the rest.


--
Dan Marotta