$75,000 2-33

Well said, Michael.


On Mon, 12 Mar 2018 20:39:06 +0000, Michael Opitz
wrote

At 19:04 12 March 2018, Tango Whisky wrote:
Maybe 5%.
We are about 50 members, and the inflow of new members is not
bad.
Now, if we had trash bins from Schweizer on display, we'd been
long gone.
I've soloed and lateron instructed in Ka7's (which could be
considered as
t=
he "European 2-33", just being 30 years ahead), but that was 30+
years
ago.=
Who wants to dwell on the middle ages?!

Certainly a Ka7 or your local variety teaches you how to fly, but so
does any modern glider.

You can't have 2-33 in a club AND complain about dwindling
membership. And
=
yes - even in Europe we had these things, but must club
managements managed to build up the switch over time. And tell
those folks who claim that dinosaur gliders are the best way to learn
the real thing... to go to hell.


OK, how many of you USA RAS posters have belonged to a European
club? There is a big difference between Europe and the USA. In
European clubs ALL members are expected to WORK (no
exceptions) On a flying day, one had to be at the airport by 9 AM
(in my club in Germany) to help unpack the hangar and assemble
whatever was kept in trailers. Once the gliders were ready, there
was a meeting to assign who got to fly what and when. Private
owners were not exempt. If you weren't flying, you were expected
to help wherever you could. After your flight as well. Nobody was
allowed to leave until the gliders had all been put away, and the
hangar doors were closed.

In the winter there was maintenance work to be done every week in
the evening. The club also took on subcontract work making
electrical cables for a local electronics firm. At the end of the winter
work season, all of the man hours were added up and divided by the
number of members in the club. If the number of hours one put in
was at the average or above, one got a "thank you". If one's hours
were below average, one received a bill to pay cash for the shortfall
in hours not worked.

This system worked to counter the problem that most USA clubs
have where only a few dedicated folks do all of the work, while the
rest can't seem to be bothered to help. It seems that most US
glider pilots want a country club atmosphere where they can reserve
a take-off time, show up at the last minute with everything already
set up for them, go fly, and then leave right after landing so that
someone else can put everything away. This may be fine for a
commercial operation, but USA pilots don't want to pay the
commercial operation's higher fees (due to providing all of these
services). The USA pilots want the lower club rates without having
to put the work in themselves.

Most European clubs also started many years ago, so what you see
now are the fruits of many years of dedicated teamwork. The
founders of my old club in Germany went door to door asking for
donations so they could build their first primary glider back in the
early 1950's. It's sort of like the old ant vs grasshopper fable. The
USA grasshoppers are jealous of what the European ants have built
up over many years of working together. The problem I have seen
over many years, is that the typical average USA club members just
don't have the dedication or discipline to follow the proven European
model. Until that mentality changes, the differences between
equipment will continue to be dramatic, and the few hard working
members will continue to realize they are being taken advantage of,
burn themselves out, and leave to do other things. The slackers are
then left asking themselves "What happened?"

RO