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

I don't think soaring needs to grow much. We don't need, and don't have the capacity for lots of pilots. What we need are a handful of obsessed pilots. Obsessed soaring pilots make the wheel go round. Said this before the big recruitment hurdle is cultural, men no longer command their recreational time. Pool to chose from is never married chaps with no girlfriend or kids or old guys with grown kids.

Simple economies of scale. Less pilots, less soaring sites, more regulation, less of a lobby effort before the FAA, fewer companies to supply insurance, repair services, higher insurance costs, fewer tow planes, fewer manufacturers of sailplanes ...in short less of everything we need to go soaring. Yes, we DO need more pilots. Both younger pilots and women as pilots will help grow our sport. I was out of soaring for 13-14 years and was shocked at how much it has contracted in that time. Within a four hour drive the 6 soaring sites are now 3. On a weekend instead of twenty private pilots there are only a hand full. Pilots need camaraderie to stay interested. It is fun to share the time both on the ground and in the air with friends. Not sure how you arrived at your conclusion that soaring does not need to grow much, but you could not be more wrong. There is a maxim "Strength in numbers".



On Friday, September 4, 2015 at 4:47:46 AM UTC-7, wrote:
I don't think soaring needs to grow much. We don't need, and don't have the capacity for lots of pilots. What we need are a handful of obsessed pilots. Obsessed soaring pilots make the wheel go round. Said this before the big recruitment hurdle is cultural, men no longer command their recreational time. Pool to chose from is never married chaps with no girlfriend or kids or old guys with grown kids.

If every glider club in the US got 50 new members, few thousand total new pilots I guess. Clubs wouldn't scale to private airports with cafe's and a fleet of Duos. They'd be crushed, who is going to put in all the 2-33 backseat time to fix the world? Besides 50 new weekend punters are useful $ wise but can be more of a operational drag then boon. You really need a few that are obsessed. Preferably obsessed and having money and time, although an abundance of one can some what make up for a lack of the other.

On Sunday, September 6, 2015 at 8:59:07 AM UTC-6, wrote:
If every glider club in the US got 50 new members, few thousand total new pilots I guess.

100 clubs x 50 = 5,000.

Clubs wouldn't scale to private airports with cafe's and a fleet of Duos.

Probably not - need new club management.

who is going to put in all the 2-33 backseat time to fix the world?

Very few in 2-33's but in DUO's you'd find many more willing instructors.

At 18:59 06 September 2015, wrote:
At the age of 17 I did a weeks course at North Weald in a KA7 on a reverse
auto-tow. Launches to 600ft or so, quick circuit and landing. I didn't see
the point!

At the age of 38 I did a weeks course at Booker in a K21 and got to fly XC
in the Duo with an expert. I was hooked.

IMO it is important to demonstrate to potential new members that gliding is
a sport, not transport. Learning to fly is challenging, flying XC is life
changing.

Jim

On Sunday, September 6, 2015 at 5:59:07 PM UTC+3, wrote:
If every glider club in the US got 50 new members, few thousand total new pilots I guess. Clubs wouldn't scale to private airports with cafe's and a fleet of Duos. They'd be crushed, who is going to put in all the 2-33 backseat time to fix the world? Besides 50 new weekend punters are useful $ wise but can be more of a operational drag then boon. You really need a few that are obsessed. Preferably obsessed and having money and time, although an abundance of one can some what make up for a lack of the other.

It a horde descended overnight then I guess clubs could get crushed, but how likely is that? If it's over 5 - 10 years then no problem.

If numbers are increasing then why on earth would you train in 2-33's? Hell, I don't know why you do it NOW -- most of the rest of the world has been training in glass for several decades. My club switched from Blaniks to Grobs in 1995 (and we were on the trailing edge in NZ I'd say), and then to DG1000s a dozen years later.

Is anyone doing basic training in Duos? The DG1000 is just fine (especially with the 18m tips). The Duo would be no problem in the air, but unsprung undercarriage doesn't seem like a good idea for student landings.

On Monday, 7 September 2015 07:19:10 UTC-4, Bruce Hoult wrote:
Is anyone doing basic training in Duos? The DG1000 is just fine (especially with the 18m tips). The Duo would be no problem in the air, but unsprung undercarriage doesn't seem like a good idea for student landings.

Bruce, how many flights does it take to get to solo using the DG1000 ?

At my club, we have a youth camp of 3 weeks duration where we train using 2-33's. We solo our kids usually around 24-28 flights. The 2-33 is a tough ship and can handle the abuse, a great workhorse.

On Tuesday, September 8, 2015 at 1:30:50 AM UTC+3, C-FFKQ (42) wrote:
On Monday, 7 September 2015 07:19:10 UTC-4, Bruce Hoult wrote:
Is anyone doing basic training in Duos? The DG1000 is just fine (especially with the 18m tips). The Duo would be no problem in the air, but unsprung undercarriage doesn't seem like a good idea for student landings.

Bruce, how many flights does it take to get to solo using the DG1000 ?

At my club, we have a youth camp of 3 weeks duration where we train using 2-33's. We solo our kids usually around 24-28 flights. The 2-33 is a tough ship and can handle the abuse, a great workhorse.

We sell a 40 flight "Pre-paid to solo" package (with disclaimer of course), but most younger people (up to 40ish?) do get there by 40 flights.

And then, of course, they're already rated in high performance glass. How many total flights does it take to train in a 2-33 and then convert to modern glass?

24 - 28 is way lower than our average even when we were using Blaniks, so perhaps we have different goals. I soloed on flight 31 (at age 22) and that was below average.

But then our field is not that huge (600m), surrounded by housing, and we do a lot of soaring flights when the opportunity arises during training including flying on gusty windy ridge/wave days when we don't expect a student (even a post-solo one) to be able to handle the tow or landing. We pretty much expect people to be able to do a 30+ minute flight as soon as they are solo, not just a quick circuit.

The number of flights to solo did increase a bit when we moved to Twin Astir (original retract ~38:1 model), though not as much as we expected, possibly because the average flight time got a lot longer. I don't think we observed any measurable difference going from Grobs to DG1000.

We put people in the PW5 after five or so solo flights in the DG1000.

Am Dienstag, 8. September 2015 00:30:50 UTC+2 schrieb C-FFKQ (42):
On Monday, 7 September 2015 07:19:10 UTC-4, Bruce Hoult wrote:
Is anyone doing basic training in Duos? The DG1000 is just fine (especially with the 18m tips). The Duo would be no problem in the air, but unsprung undercarriage doesn't seem like a good idea for student landings.

Bruce, how many flights does it take to get to solo using the DG1000 ?

At my club, we have a youth camp of 3 weeks duration where we train using 2-33's. We solo our kids usually around 24-28 flights. The 2-33 is a tough ship and can handle the abuse, a great workhorse.

I've been training ab-initio students in Ka7, Twin Astir, Janus B and ASK21, and I haven't seen any significant difference in how long it takes to solo.

I can't imagine how you would attract people to gliding if you offering them to train in a 2-33... It's the year 2015. ASK21 are very tough workhorses, and an repairs on glass ships are *much* easier and faster done than on wood and fabric. That's one of the main reasons clubs in Europe changed from training in Ka7 and ASK13 to ASK21 - almost maintainance free, and cheap to repair.

But I guess that states of mind are quite different on both sides on the pond: From what I learned, you can get a glider licence in the US without having thermalled once, and you can be trained by instructors who have no XC experience at all. In Europe, that would just be impossible.

We typically try to "snatch" the youngsters, starting from age 14, and we offer them training up to their first 50 or 100 km solo (well, we have to as it is mandatory). And we don't teach people to glide, but to soar. A 2h solo flight is mandatory before they move on to initial XC training.

All of this is not seen as "additional barrier", but part of the game.
And we dont threat them with 2-33 or 1-26. In modest clubs, a beginner is trained in an ASK13 and then moves on to Ka8 and Ka6, and then relatively quickly to some glass club class glider. In my club, our fleet is 2x ASK21, 2x DuoDiscus, 2x LS4 and 2x LS-18-18 for about 50 actively flying members, and days where you won't get a seat in one of these ships are extremely ra There are about 15 private ships owned by club members. We have a total of 9 instructors, all with XC experience, two of them doing 700 km through the Alps on a regular basis.

And no, we don't have the problem that our membership is declining.

So what sort of fee structure do you have at your club to support all of those aircraft? Initial buy in cost? Monthly dues? Price per tow? Price for use of each plane?

2-33: $8-10k
ASK21: $80k (???)
Duo: $100k
LS4: $40k



In my club, our fleet is 2x ASK21, 2x DuoDiscus, 2x LS4 and 2x LS-18-18 for about 50 actively flying members, and days where you won't get a seat in one of these ships are extremely ra There are about 15 private ships owned by club members. We have a total of 9 instructors, all with XC experience, two of them doing 700 km through the Alps on a regular basis.

And no, we don't have the problem that our membership is declining.