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

On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 7:25:13 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Dave,

These are fantastic ideas. I don't think anyone ran with the ideas at the SSA convention that it was presented at unfortunately.

Rather than a one class fits all, the idea of breaking classes (and perhaps tasks) down into smaller, appropriate groups seems very appealing (all the way around).

A few years ago we had some regional contests in Ionia. We generally had both FAI and a Sports class. Some really wanted the easier tasks that sports class typically offered (even some experienced pilots with 18m gliders).. Others wanted to race with the "hot shots' in FAI even thought they had older gliders (knowing they would probably end up near the bottom). We didn't really know how to handle this. We could certainly see the desire these pilots had to do what "they wanted" rather than what "we wanted!" We of course let them do what they wanted.

In sailing, lots of classes and lots of trophies works very well. Rather than having 60 boats (for example) in one class and only one winner...why not have 4 classes of various skill level and experience. In sailing it might be broken down into professional, corinthian, Women, Jr's, etc. They all race the same race course, but are scored as an overall AND in the individual classes. Trophies and recognition is of equal importance for all classes. Also little awards such as most improved, best first time attendee, capsize award (see land out award) are well liked.

In soaring, I could see a breakdown by SSA ranking. 100-90, 90-80, 80-70, etc. We could also start a beginner class. I agree (no brainer really) that all involved would have more fun and more of a chance to compete with pilots of equal skill level with more segmented classes. It would be less intimidating. More trophies, more excitement and hopefully a steady graduation thru the ranks as one improves. People enjoy recognition and to feel a sense of accomplishment. When someone gets trophy in front of a crowd, it is a great moment for them and really "set's the hook" in a good way. We should be maximizing these moments for our contests participants AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE! Far more than we do today.

I personally could care less if I was racing with 30 gliders or 5 of my general skills level. The truth is that we always end up racing with 3-5 gliders anyway at most contests. The 3-5 of our skill level. Interesting points DH. Thanks for sharing!

Sean

On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 5:53:00 PM UTC-4, 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

Some things I have been involved in
Mifflin "rookie" contest. Entry by reverse seeding so all the new guys get in. Then run classes every day before flying and debrief after flying. This was quite popular and hopefully will be repeated.
Rookie School- actively teaching the new folks how to fly a contest and mentoring each every day. This has had good results in terms of safety and getting folks going with good results. We also ask the top rookie to give "winner's" speech at pilots meetings.
Contest riding- most everyone in our club who wants to has gotten to fly/ride in one of our 2 seat gliders in a contest. We are seeing some of these folks become contestants. Even those that don't seem to be much more likely to start flying XC.
It may seem obvious but the more we welcome and encourage those that have an interest, the more will stay and thrive.
FWIW
UH

Another thought -

The Region 10 North contest last year had Club and Low Performance classes. (Another Tony Condon idea.)

It brought a bunch of less experienced pilots with less expensive gliders into the contest fold.

Lou

PS - Little did I know that, in my case, Low Performance applied to both the glider and the pilot

We should consider formalizing this and mapping it into our contest results, website etc on a standard basis.

If people know they have a chance to compete at their level and "win" a level category, they will probably be more excited to compete.

Instead of a straight linear SSA Pilot Ranking list, break it up into segments so we have several champions. The same breakdown for contest results. Overall and then by segments.

100-90 - Hot Shots
89.9-80 - Advanced
79.9-70 - Intermediate
Beginner (first 2 (3?) years since first contest?)
Jr.
Female

Jr. and Female would be ranked in up to 3 categories (overall, advanced (for example) and Jr. or Female. 3 times on the podium! 3 medals!

Instead of just one, we would have 6 ranking lists with 6 champions on the contest results page of the SSA website! We could also start some perpetual trophies for the SSA convention awards banquet (SSA) (per the annual ranking list "champions" along with the additional SSA medals for these categories at contests.

We could also do OLC individual achievement medals and club trophies at the SSA convention.

The more winners and recognition that we can produce, the better! We are leaving considerable magic (opportunity) on the table at contest by not recognizing more pilots at various skill/experience levels. People simply love having a shot at a trophy. They love being recognized. It may just keep them coming back. It may just inspire others to give it a try. Not be beat the superstars, but to win at a reasonable first step level against pilots of a similar skill level within a class. Medals, trophies, etc. are fairly inexpensive while being enormously valuable to those who receive them in front of their peers (see Tony Condon getting on the podium for the USA team bronze at the 13.5 meter World Championship today).

We have a nice, content rich SSA website...it would be easy to have a special "podium" page highlighting all these new rankings, awards and trophies. I'll bet it would be the most viewed page before too long. It would create buzz and these pilots recieving new recognition would love it!

We need to try these things! How about now for next season?

Sean