The highly successful UK Junior XC program vs. USA's nonexistantJunior XC program. Why?

Good stuff Chip! I agree.

Where is the SSA on this topic?

Crickets.........

On Friday, October 2, 2015 at 3:15:23 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Good stuff Chip! I agree.

Where is the SSA on this topic?

Crickets.........

With what Chip said the path forward is easy. Put a Junior in your glider, crew for, and coach them through regular contests. Simple. No need for SSA to do anything.

In case you haven't already go to youtube and search UK Junior Gliding TV to see what Sean is talking about here. Those kids are having an amazing good time. I enjoyed putsing around with the old guys when I was a kid but given the choice any teenager would rather have the kind of fun the Brittish Junior Team is having.
Heck, I want to go hang out with them myself!

Those kids are having an amazing good time. I enjoyed putsing around with the old guys when I was a kid but given the choice any teenager would rather have the kind of fun the Brittish Junior Team is having.
Heck, I want to go hang out with them myself!

It's not that I enjoyed "putzing around with the old guys" per se. Some things don't change. I just wanted to fly against them in competition. Spending time and money to tilt against a handful of barely post-solo juniors wouldn't have been as attractive once I got past that stage myself.

On the other hand, the stuff on the UK Junior Gliding TV videos looks marvelous! Yes, yes, yes, in a minute. But doing grass-level, high-speed passes in a modern glider at the Junior World Championship before dancing the night away isn't quite what one is likely to encounter at Ionia next summer.

Of course, you have to start somewhere, and--as Sean has pointed out--the UK Junior experience is a great goal. So if, after polling the juniors, there's enough interest in the proposed event, then by all means go for it. I was just expressing what my views were at the time, a far different time by someone who was in the ideal position to benefit from my father and a good club.

And it was a time, as now, when there just weren't very many junior pilots. Perhaps a good question would be: How many of today's competition pilots started flying gliders as juniors? I know of quite a few: Eric Mozer, Erik Nelson, Erik Mann (hey, there's a theme, here!), Sean Fidler, Sean Franke (another theme), Tommy Beltz, Hank Nixon, Roy McMaster (I believe), Garret and Boyd Willet, John Seymour, Chris Woods, Andy Blackburn, Rick Indrebo, Dave Mockler, Danny Sorenson, Mitch Hudson, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some plus leaving out others I don't know. I think most, though certainly not all, of these pilots had a family connection: a father or other family member who was already involved in soaring. Trying to duplicate that may be a way to grow our base but I suspect we're looking for more than this.

It's probably no accident that two guys on this list who got into soaring based on their own strong interest--Hank Nixon and Erik Mann--have been leaders in encouraging cross country, competition, and junior soaring for many years in my part of the country...and can probably speak much more knowledgeably about what it takes to promote junior soaring than I can.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

Hi All,

We are pleased to see that UK Junior Gliding has been well received.

I think the biggest thing we have tried to achieve is a sense of community
- even in the UK, distances make it difficult to hold regular events and
for friends to meet up. Social media has been key to this, alongside a few
organised weekend events. Once you create a nationwide friend group, who
want to make the effort to travel then half the battle is won. It doesn't
happen overnight, but once the foundations are laid, it continues to grow.

We use facebook / youtube to keep things light-hearted, informative and
competitive. We all know gliding is an awesome sport, but sometimes the
rules and regulations get in the way of that. We have focussed a lot of
energy on displaying the true image of gliding.

Needless to say, we are greatly assisted by non-Juniors. At our "Winter
Series" (over 80 Junior entries) we have private owners bringing their
2-seaters and flying Juniors, helping with the launching, and generally
showing support to the future of the sport. It is key to the current
success of UKJG and great to see. We want to create a culture of giving
back, its the only way to sustainably grow a Junior scene.

This only scratches the surface.

If a Junior development group is set up Stateside, we would be more than
happy to offer our advice / experiences where possible.

Feel free to fire us an email at or message us
through the facebook page www.facebook.com/ukjuniorgliding.

Cheers
Charlie Jordan, Steve Pozerskis, Matt Davis