FAI, soaring and Olympic Games

I'm sorry to hear you react negatively to this.

Actually, Olympic sailing motivates many, many thousands of junior sailors worldwide to focus on the goal of qualifying for the Olympics. And this has a significant impact on youth sailing programs in the USA (massive growth) over the past 5-10 years, High School sailing teams'(growing rapidly in the USA over the past 10 years) and college sailing teams which have grown moderately. The US Sailing (SSA of sailing) effort to grow youth and high school sailing is directly related to Olympic sailing. They recruit and fund the US Jr Olympic development team and the side effect is that it provides the US as much larger pool of talent to develop. Thousands of kids have this in mind as they progress into the sport at early youth levels.

I say competition is good. At all levels. This adds to the growth and keeps kids in the sport longer. The Olympics are a big deal to kids. It's recognizable. Little about the sport of gliding is.

Gliding, especially in the US, is really poor when It comes to developing youth interest. As an organization the SSA has nearly hit rock bottom in this function. In fact, it may already be a lost cause. But Europeans and other FAI countries would probably enjoy an Olympic event to shoot for. But they don't appear to be working very hard for it either.

The Olympics would hurt nothing. But being part of the Olympics is a huge deal for many sports. Especially small ones. The initial upside of a new Olympic category for gliding is high when compared to to low cost of supporting the Olympic test event (the first step in this process). If successful, Gliding could be re-introduced into the Olympics. That would provide an opportunity for great exposure (major media, nationalistic pride, youth interest, exposure otherwise impossible) for the sport, especially outside (key) of the current demographics (tiny). That would be good, if not great for soaring.

I'm personally very positive about this idea. I find it curious that the FAI and IGC have not pursued this any further. It seems like a no brainer really.

The FAI is trying to do it from scratch with SGP, for example. Very difficult. But the Olympics has a massive pre-built audience to tap into. If you combined the two fomats, it could get a massive boost.

It would also be great for the sailplane manufacturer who is selected to build the gliders selected for the Olympic gliding competition. Sales of dozens of new gliders would be likely. Perhaps hundreds.

And, of course, it would be damn fun for the athletes/pilots and fans. Soaring has an exceptional visual appeal and "exoticness" that is second to none. And soaring would also be the only aviation sport in the Olympics. I would be surprised if paragliding or hang-gliding doesn't win the race however as we have wasted tons of time doing nothing, or have already given up apparently. Maybe it's time to make another proposal?

How many SAT points is being a potential Olympic sailor worth? College admissions is the driver. Same reason kids play lacrosse. No such luck for soaring. The Olympics won't drive new starts, the freak sports in the Olympics get nil coverage. You have to watch them on youtube, and the sports are already on youtube. Which is great, we don't need to be in the Olympics to get coverage for our sport. Find a social media ace to promote the SGP. Or sell the SGP to a soda company.
On Sunday, October 30, 2016 at 10:37:41 PM UTC-4, Sean wrote:
I'm sorry to hear you react negatively to this.

Actually, Olympic sailing motivates many, many thousands of junior sailors worldwide to focus on the goal of qualifying for the Olympics. And this has a significant impact on youth sailing programs in the USA (massive growth) over the past 5-10 years, High School sailing teams'(growing rapidly in the USA over the past 10 years) and college sailing teams which have grown moderately. The US Sailing (SSA of sailing) effort to grow youth and high school sailing is directly related to Olympic sailing. They recruit and fund the US Jr Olympic development team and the side effect is that it provides the US as much larger pool of talent to develop. Thousands of kids have this in mind as they progress into the sport at early youth levels.

I say competition is good. At all levels. This adds to the growth and keeps kids in the sport longer. The Olympics are a big deal to kids. It's recognizable. Little about the sport of gliding is.

Gliding, especially in the US, is really poor when It comes to developing youth interest. As an organization the SSA has nearly hit rock bottom in this function. In fact, it may already be a lost cause. But Europeans and other FAI countries would probably enjoy an Olympic event to shoot for. But they don't appear to be working very hard for it either.

The Olympics would hurt nothing. But being part of the Olympics is a huge deal for many sports. Especially small ones. The initial upside of a new Olympic category for gliding is high when compared to to low cost of supporting the Olympic test event (the first step in this process). If successful, Gliding could be re-introduced into the Olympics. That would provide an opportunity for great exposure (major media, nationalistic pride, youth interest, exposure otherwise impossible) for the sport, especially outside (key) of the current demographics (tiny). That would be good, if not great for soaring.

I'm personally very positive about this idea. I find it curious that the FAI and IGC have not pursued this any further. It seems like a no brainer really.

The FAI is trying to do it from scratch with SGP, for example. Very difficult. But the Olympics has a massive pre-built audience to tap into. If you combined the two fomats, it could get a massive boost.

It would also be great for the sailplane manufacturer who is selected to build the gliders selected for the Olympic gliding competition. Sales of dozens of new gliders would be likely. Perhaps hundreds.

And, of course, it would be damn fun for the athletes/pilots and fans. Soaring has an exceptional visual appeal and "exoticness" that is second to none. And soaring would also be the only aviation sport in the Olympics. I would be surprised if paragliding or hang-gliding doesn't win the race however as we have wasted tons of time doing nothing, or have already given up apparently. Maybe it's time to make another proposal?

Not sure what FAIs end game strategy is with SGP yet...the right producer and it's off to the races...and yes, I've talked to several producers. Longshot is an understatement but you never know...

On Sunday, October 30, 2016 at 11:09:11 PM UTC-6, Sean wrote:
Not sure what FAIs end game strategy is with SGP yet...the right producer and it's off to the races...and yes, I've talked to several producers. Longshot is an understatement but you never know...

SGP ramped up as a high impact, professional formula racing series that would/could be shown on sports channels live and in repeats. That faltered. I don't know if the producers of the Chile SGP ever recouped their costs (helicopter video platform costs were $250,000 alone). He tried with a Kickstarter to produce another soaring promotion, but all contributors received were their DVD's and headgear, so SGP format wound up with IGC.

The World Class adopted the PW-5 and it was flown in the WAG in Turkey. As a design class, it could be produced by anyone, which seemed a purist approach. I don't now what international competitions say about skiis, rifles, sailing boats, and other equipment sports. Anyway, apart from the WAG, the PW-5 and World Class did not inspire a majority of participants. Many others opined the World Class should have been based on a 40:1 glider, the LS-4, which is one or, if not the most produced, single seater. WGC adoption might have kept it production for many more years.

The Chile SGP and the Italian WAG 2009 both used Yellowbrick.com for real time tracking solutions, though I think both used different display servers. IIRC, over 5000 remote viewers watched these real time, so the displays were slightly different though both were excellent and engaging to the point where you could see pilots make divergent (and sometimes wrong) decisions. Spot and InReach are not comparable. Yellowbrick was not cheap. Helicopters and live feeds are not cheap, so sponsorship and advertising would be needed to make it happen. Probably out of the question for qualifiers. However, looking forward to about 2020, there may be opportunities.

On the technical side, satellite MUX space is still limited. Iridium NEXT has yet to fly, but it could open the door for real time cockpit video. Whether there are other options affordable and available, I can't say. Kind of like the dark (unlit) fiber infrastructure. Kind of hard to find out who and where. I'm locally aware of optical fiber that's been around for a long time, but never lit, despite the fees paid to bring high speed Internet to the masses. I still feel like I'm in frontier land and now Google has stalled on their Google fiber.

Gee, if only pilots could live (or slightly buffer) feed their soaring flights to their Facebook pages. This could be possible by 2020, just around the corner.

Frank Whiteley

On Monday, October 31, 2016 at 6:06:08 PM UTC+3, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On Sunday, October 30, 2016 at 11:09:11 PM UTC-6, Sean wrote:
Not sure what FAIs end game strategy is with SGP yet...the right producer and it's off to the races...and yes, I've talked to several producers. Longshot is an understatement but you never know...

SGP ramped up as a high impact, professional formula racing series that would/could be shown on sports channels live and in repeats. That faltered. I don't know if the producers of the Chile SGP ever recouped their costs (helicopter video platform costs were $250,000 alone). He tried with a Kickstarter to produce another soaring promotion, but all contributors received were their DVD's and headgear, so SGP format wound up with IGC.

The World Class adopted the PW-5 and it was flown in the WAG in Turkey. As a design class, it could be produced by anyone, which seemed a purist approach. I don't now what international competitions say about skiis, rifles, sailing boats, and other equipment sports. Anyway, apart from the WAG, the PW-5 and World Class did not inspire a majority of participants. Many others opined the World Class should have been based on a 40:1 glider, the LS-4, which is one or, if not the most produced, single seater. WGC adoption might have kept it production for many more years.

The Chile SGP and the Italian WAG 2009 both used Yellowbrick.com for real time tracking solutions, though I think both used different display servers. IIRC, over 5000 remote viewers watched these real time, so the displays were slightly different though both were excellent and engaging to the point where you could see pilots make divergent (and sometimes wrong) decisions. Spot and InReach are not comparable. Yellowbrick was not cheap. Helicopters and live feeds are not cheap, so sponsorship and advertising would be needed to make it happen. Probably out of the question for qualifiers. However, looking forward to about 2020, there may be opportunities.

On the technical side, satellite MUX space is still limited. Iridium NEXT has yet to fly, but it could open the door for real time cockpit video. Whether there are other options affordable and available, I can't say. Kind of like the dark (unlit) fiber infrastructure. Kind of hard to find out who and where. I'm locally aware of optical fiber that's been around for a long time, but never lit, despite the fees paid to bring high speed Internet to the masses. I still feel like I'm in frontier land and now Google has stalled on their Google fiber.

Gee, if only pilots could live (or slightly buffer) feed their soaring flights to their Facebook pages. This could be possible by 2020, just around the corner.

Frank Whiteley

Don't forget the 2006 NZ Gliding Grand Prix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc_aUMLEwNk

I thought the computer graphics at that event were superior to those that have followed.

Last week I was watching live video feed from Warren Crammer from Wurtsburo flying in thier ASK21. I could hear him talking to me and I was texting him (while someone else was flying of coarse).

Not sure why you think live feed video is far away?

WH

On Monday, October 31, 2016 at 7:30:10 PM UTC+3, wrote:
Last week I was watching live video feed from Warren Crammer from Wurtsburo flying in thier ASK21. I could hear him talking to me and I was texting him (while someone else was flying of coarse).

Not sure why you think live feed video is far away?

Sure, if there are good mobile phone networks in the place you're flying. Much glider racing around the world takes place in areas with nil or weak mobile coverage.

How about a soaring reality show on Discovery Channel? We could all get
tattoos, grow beards, quit getting haircuts, spit and cuss a lot, have
girl groupies with big boobs and low cut necklines... It'd be a hit for
sure! Where do I sign up?

On 10/30/2016 11:09 PM, Sean wrote:
Not sure what FAIs end game strategy is with SGP yet...the right producer and it's off to the races...and yes, I've talked to several producers. Longshot is an understatement but you never know...

--
Dan, 5J

On Monday, October 31, 2016 at 1:27:06 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
How about a soaring reality show on Discovery Channel? We could all get
tattoos, grow beards, quit getting haircuts, spit and cuss a lot, have
girl groupies with big boobs and low cut necklines... It'd be a hit for
sure! Where do I sign up?

On 10/30/2016 11:09 PM, Sean wrote:
Not sure what FAIs end game strategy is with SGP yet...the right producer and it's off to the races...and yes, I've talked to several producers. Longshot is an understatement but you never know...

--
Dan, 5J

Now that's funny -

Dennis