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

On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 12:41:16 PM UTC-4, Tango Eight wrote:

It simply isn't possible to provide more encouragement than we already do.

Evan Ludeman / T8

I forgot to mention: among the inducements is a chance to go fly the White Mountains -- the only real alpine soaring to be found in the Eastern US -- with airport landing options the whole way. It's the best XC milk run in the known universe.

Easy day: http://tinyurl.com/poj7tlk

Less easy day: http://tinyurl.com/ptx3lle

But objectively, we're the weirdos. Most people don't want to do this.

Evan Ludeman / T8

On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 12:41:16 PM UTC-4, Tango Eight wrote:
On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 12:12:55 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Hmmmmm. Last I checked, I did not see a large crowd of US female pilots who compete with the men. SKA is a fairly unique person! We need dozens more!

The reason why women are not competing in US contests is an interesting discussion point (new thread?). It is not a physical thing of course. In fact women have a physical advantage (in addition to their mental/emotional strengths!). It's also not a financial thing. So, what is it? I believe that both Europe and Australia have far more women competing in contests.

Personally, I would think that if: A) women's soaring was to grow in the US someday and B) 5-10 women were attending a future US contest...many of those women would appreciate a separate women's classification in the same way juniors would. Maybe I am wrong but I would definitely want to hear from "other women" as well when/if they hopefully materialize some day.

Remember, I am proposing an overall scoring for everyone (as normal) but individual clasifications (per suggestions) for beginner, various SSA ranking levels and of course feminine.

IOW, if we magically had 3 women at a contest in 2016, they should get a gold, silver and bronze medal no matter what their overall scores happen to be! They should be celebrated along with Jr's and beginners! Building numbers these competition categories (beginners, juniors and women) at our future events Is FAR MORE important to the US Soaring community than overall winners.

We simply have to do something significant to stem this tide of shrinking or stale numbers. It costs nothing to try these ideas. If it fails, so what? Let's not continue to sit on our hands in almost every aspect of our organization. We need some big ideas and some serious innovation. The sport of soaring is incredible...we need to market it and compete. Simple as that.

Just my opinion of course!

Sean
7T

You can't even stay on your own topic :-).

I'm much more interested in promoting XC. Competition is just one little piece of the whole.

People are just lazy. That's my opinion. My evidence includes the fact that one can join my own club (including one time initiation) for about 1/2 what most of us pay to insure *old* gliders and (when qualified) get the keys to an HpH 304c. Yep, a real, live 40+:1 glass slipper, equipped for basic XC and with a serviceable trailer too. The number of people who grab this opportunity is astonishingly small. Those that do almost invariably get smitten with the sport and move whatever pieces of heaven and earth are required to procure their own high performance glider (leaving the 304 available for the next convert!).

Most people, most *pilots* just don't want to put in the work.

It simply isn't possible to provide more encouragement than we already do..

Evan Ludeman / T8

Evan, your club's approach is working! Why are you saying people are too lazy? Some got converted. For such a small club you probably have higher conversion rate than most clubs.
Andrzej

On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 2:51:28 PM UTC-4, Andrzej Kobus wrote:
On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 12:41:16 PM UTC-4, Tango Eight wrote:
On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 12:12:55 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Hmmmmm. Last I checked, I did not see a large crowd of US female pilots who compete with the men. SKA is a fairly unique person! We need dozens more!

The reason why women are not competing in US contests is an interesting discussion point (new thread?). It is not a physical thing of course. In fact women have a physical advantage (in addition to their mental/emotional strengths!). It's also not a financial thing. So, what is it? I believe that both Europe and Australia have far more women competing in contests.

Personally, I would think that if: A) women's soaring was to grow in the US someday and B) 5-10 women were attending a future US contest...many of those women would appreciate a separate women's classification in the same way juniors would. Maybe I am wrong but I would definitely want to hear from "other women" as well when/if they hopefully materialize some day.

Remember, I am proposing an overall scoring for everyone (as normal) but individual clasifications (per suggestions) for beginner, various SSA ranking levels and of course feminine.

IOW, if we magically had 3 women at a contest in 2016, they should get a gold, silver and bronze medal no matter what their overall scores happen to be! They should be celebrated along with Jr's and beginners! Building numbers these competition categories (beginners, juniors and women) at our future events Is FAR MORE important to the US Soaring community than overall winners.

We simply have to do something significant to stem this tide of shrinking or stale numbers. It costs nothing to try these ideas. If it fails, so what? Let's not continue to sit on our hands in almost every aspect of our organization. We need some big ideas and some serious innovation. The sport of soaring is incredible...we need to market it and compete. Simple as that.

Just my opinion of course!

Sean
7T

You can't even stay on your own topic :-).

I'm much more interested in promoting XC. Competition is just one little piece of the whole.

People are just lazy. That's my opinion. My evidence includes the fact that one can join my own club (including one time initiation) for about 1/2 what most of us pay to insure *old* gliders and (when qualified) get the keys to an HpH 304c. Yep, a real, live 40+:1 glass slipper, equipped for basic XC and with a serviceable trailer too. The number of people who grab this opportunity is astonishingly small. Those that do almost invariably get smitten with the sport and move whatever pieces of heaven and earth are required to procure their own high performance glider (leaving the 304 available for the next convert!).

Most people, most *pilots* just don't want to put in the work.

It simply isn't possible to provide more encouragement than we already do.

Evan Ludeman / T8

Evan, your club's approach is working! Why are you saying people are too lazy? Some got converted. For such a small club you probably have higher conversion rate than most clubs.
Andrzej

The puzzle is that there isn't more demand.

Otoh, we're churning out CFIGs right now, a trio of which are in the process of founding a new club in Maine. I guess that counts for something too.

It is true that despite being only about two dozen active members, we can instruct & mentor just about anything.

-Evan

I'm a newly licensed glider pilot, and I can't wait to start flying XC. I recently restarted my training after an 8 year hiatus. One of the things that motivated me to get back into soaring is the development of electric sustainers. Having the ability to flip a switch and be confident that the motor will start every time makes XC way less intimidating to me. The risk, and more importantly, the massive hassle of a landout is a real turn-off, personally. I know that I will still have to be prepared for the possibility of a landout even with an e-sustainer, but it seems improbable enough to ease my anxiety about it.

Granted, I don't have a glider with an electric sustainer available to me right now, but after I gain some XC experience with my local club, one may be in my future.

Perhaps if/when electric sustainers become more common in soaring clubs, more people will be willing to fly XC. They may even bring in a new class of people to the sport who would be too afraid to try even local soaring due to the lack of self-propulsion.

On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 3:25:06 PM UTC-4, wrote:
I'm a newly licensed glider pilot, and I can't wait to start flying XC. I recently restarted my training after an 8 year hiatus. One of the things that motivated me to get back into soaring is the development of electric sustainers. Having the ability to flip a switch and be confident that the motor will start every time makes XC way less intimidating to me. The risk, and more importantly, the massive hassle of a landout is a real turn-off, personally. I know that I will still have to be prepared for the possibility of a landout even with an e-sustainer, but it seems improbable enough to ease my anxiety about it.

Granted, I don't have a glider with an electric sustainer available to me right now, but after I gain some XC experience with my local club, one may be in my future.

Perhaps if/when electric sustainers become more common in soaring clubs, more people will be willing to fly XC. They may even bring in a new class of people to the sport who would be too afraid to try even local soaring due to the lack of self-propulsion.

Perhaps if you crewed for someone and helped by doing a retrieve or 2 you would find out that while inconvenient(you're gonna be late for dinner), very few turn out to be a "massive hassle". Out of the many more than 100 field landings I have made, only a couple would fall in that category. Many were pleasant interesting experiences that allowed me to meet a bunch of very nice folks.
UH

On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 10:41:16 AM UTC-6, Tango Eight wrote:
On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 12:12:55 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Hmmmmm. Last I checked, I did not see a large crowd of US female pilots who compete with the men. SKA is a fairly unique person! We need dozens more!

The reason why women are not competing in US contests is an interesting discussion point (new thread?). It is not a physical thing of course. In fact women have a physical advantage (in addition to their mental/emotional strengths!). It's also not a financial thing. So, what is it? I believe that both Europe and Australia have far more women competing in contests.

Personally, I would think that if: A) women's soaring was to grow in the US someday and B) 5-10 women were attending a future US contest...many of those women would appreciate a separate women's classification in the same way juniors would. Maybe I am wrong but I would definitely want to hear from "other women" as well when/if they hopefully materialize some day.

Remember, I am proposing an overall scoring for everyone (as normal) but individual clasifications (per suggestions) for beginner, various SSA ranking levels and of course feminine.

IOW, if we magically had 3 women at a contest in 2016, they should get a gold, silver and bronze medal no matter what their overall scores happen to be! They should be celebrated along with Jr's and beginners! Building numbers these competition categories (beginners, juniors and women) at our future events Is FAR MORE important to the US Soaring community than overall winners.

We simply have to do something significant to stem this tide of shrinking or stale numbers. It costs nothing to try these ideas. If it fails, so what? Let's not continue to sit on our hands in almost every aspect of our organization. We need some big ideas and some serious innovation. The sport of soaring is incredible...we need to market it and compete. Simple as that.

Just my opinion of course!

Sean
7T

You can't even stay on your own topic :-).

I'm much more interested in promoting XC. Competition is just one little piece of the whole.

People are just lazy. That's my opinion. My evidence includes the fact that one can join my own club (including one time initiation) for about 1/2 what most of us pay to insure *old* gliders and (when qualified) get the keys to an HpH 304c. Yep, a real, live 40+:1 glass slipper, equipped for basic XC and with a serviceable trailer too. The number of people who grab this opportunity is astonishingly small. Those that do almost invariably get smitten with the sport and move whatever pieces of heaven and earth are required to procure their own high performance glider (leaving the 304 available for the next convert!).

Most people, most *pilots* just don't want to put in the work.

It simply isn't possible to provide more encouragement than we already do..

Evan Ludeman / T8

My start was when the chief instructor handed me a barograph and said to smoke it right away as it was a good day to fly 50k. I wasn't given the opportunity to say no.

Frank Whiteley

On 8/18/2015 2:33 PM, Frank Whiteley wrote:
People are just lazy. That's my opinion. My evidence includes the fact
that one can join my own club (including one time initiation) for about
1/2 what most of us pay to insure *old* gliders and (when qualified) get
the keys to an HpH 304c. Yep, a real, live 40+:1 glass slipper,
equipped for basic XC and with a serviceable trailer too. The number of
people who grab this opportunity is astonishingly small. Those that do
almost invariably get smitten with the sport and move whatever pieces of
heaven and earth are required to procure their own high performance
glider (leaving the 304 available for the next convert!).

Most people, most *pilots* just don't want to put in the work.

It simply isn't possible to provide more encouragement than we already
do.

My start was when the chief instructor handed me a barograph and said to
smoke it right away as it was a good day to fly 50k. I wasn't given the
opportunity to say no.

Frank Whiteley

What Frank described is how I got 2/3 of my Silver when I got started, i.e.
being handed ("forced") opportunities to fly with a barograph. Since then, I
can recall exactly one attempt to bag Silver Distance, which failed. Somewhere
along in there I realized soaring could provide what I was looking for from
piloting: 1) flight, and 2) continuing challenge. Considered from that
perspective, my motivation was "purely selfish." Never did "bother" to obtain
any further badge recognition.

Yet somewhere(s) along the line I began considering/looking for ways to
(choose whichever apply to your worldview): "give back," share with others,
proselytize, etc. "Know thyself" played a part in that I've long considered
myself world's worst salesman in the sense that I've little interest/ability
preaching to a disinterested - or even neutral - audience...at least not
face-to-face. Books were about it for me - one on the proselytizing front, and
one to-the-choir/"possibly-interested-general-aviation-types" audience. Never
could talk myself into going the CFIG route. Been a member of clubs that
DIScouraged and ENcouraged XC. Ignored the naysayers; followed internal
motivation; did my own thing; looked out for potential other "XC weirdos;"
tried to encourage all considering/taking lessons & suggested they'd be helped
by "knowing themselves;" pondered the mysteries of life...

Seen a lot of good thoughts in this thread, and encourage everyone who now or
periodically feels extra motivation to
spread-the-word/sell-soaring/grow-the-sport/etc./etc./etc., to do so in ways
they can support and sustain, because the truism "if no one does anything,
nothing will happen," definitely applies. If there IS "a magic bullet" to sell
soaring (and I don't think there is), it's action. There ain't no panacea
approach; arguably all sales efforts have merit; there might BE something to
the Nike approach. (Just do it!)

Keep those ideas coming, keep those internal fires stoked, do "it" when you
can while recognizing "it" doesn't have to - although it *can* or *might*
(your choice) - be a "massive lifestyle change" on your part. In other words,
just because you obtain your CFIG doesn't preclude continuing solo XC "for
yourself". Nor do you have to reinvent your club over the winter, and failing
that, consider your efforts a failure. Do what's reasonable for you and your
circumstances.

Along the way, it may help your own internal "sales motivation" if (like me)
you find active selling to be a chore, you maintain a realistic view of your
efforts and their likely and actual effects. My own proselytizing efforts have
always been motivated mostly from a sense it was the right thing to do, as
distinct from (say) expecting to fundamentally change the world in the way any
casual observer could detect, or, because I expected attaboys from fellow club
members. I consider the former unrealistic, and the latter a good way to
increase one's personal disappointment quotient...which topically circles
around to the sentiment expressed above Frank's post! So like Mr. Spock in The
Simpsons cartoon; "I'll be leaving now. My work here is done."

Bob W.

P.S. Oh didn't I?