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You could buy a farm with sufficient space to grade and seed your own
runway.Â* The farm house would make a terrific club house and the barn would be turned into a shop.Â* That would be a lot cheaper that $5-9 million and wouldn't have to be too far away from population centers. On 3/13/2018 10:10 AM, Papa3 wrote: On Monday, March 12, 2018 at 4:45:06 PM UTC-4, Michael Opitz wrote: 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 Hey Mike, I asked the question because I wanted to get these sorts of responses. Having flown extensively in UK and Europe, it's exactly the above that leaps out. The clubs do all of their own work and have the facilities required to do that work (shops and hangars). Being one of the guys who is becoming burned out (two full refinish projects in the last 5 years), it's that community that's missing in many clubs in the US (though not all). One related thing though is that issue of owning the airfield. I noted the large club that bought their field for 190,000 DM in 1999 as mentioned by Andreas. If we tried to buy our airfield 20 years ago, the asking price was $5,000,000 (five million) and today it's north of $9,000,000. Because of land use policies in the US, there is little separation between City/Town and "country", so anything within 100 miles of a major population center is going to be incredibly expensive. It's been my observation that most of the more successful clubs (again with some exceptions) have ownership of the airport. One of the big problems (as your club knows quite acutely) is that being able to afford an airport in the US anywhere near a major population center is a challenge. So, you either end up "out in the boondocks" (for our EU friends, that means a 2 hour to 3 hour drive from where people live) or you end up coexisting on a busy public use airport with a lot of issues (such as not being able to winch launch). It's not that Americans are (all) stupid or stubborn, but the economics are fundamentally different. And yeah, some of us are incredibly stupid and stubborn. Erik Mann -- Dan, 5J |
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On Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at 12:17:02 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
You could buy a farm with sufficient space to grade and seed your own runway.Â* The farm house would make a terrific club house and the barn would be turned into a shop.Â* That would be a lot cheaper that $5-9 million and wouldn't have to be too far away from population centers. That's another good reason to move to New Mexico :-) Finding a piece of land in the Northeast within say 80 miles of New York that meets reasonable size criteria (say 300 x 2000) and level and not bordered by Mcmansions is a Quixotic quest. We actually came close to buying a property many years ago (30+), but even at that time it was close to $750K IIRC (that's about $1.7M in today's dollars). Mike's club (Nutmeg Soaring) moved out to a rural location a while back, but it's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that membership levels have been hard/impossible to grow due to the distance from where people live.... P3 |
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At 16:51 13 March 2018, Papa3 wrote:
Mike's club (Nutmeg Soaring) moved out to a rural location a while back, bu= t it's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that membership levels ha= ve been hard/impossible to grow due to the distance from where people live.= ... P3 Yes Erik, it has been a challenge. When we were tenants in CT close to NYC, we had 85-90 members, but we kept having to move from one airport to another for various reasons. After 47 years of being gypsy nomads, a core group decided that it was time to get a place of our own. Property values in CT were out of reach, so our search landed us about a 2 hour drive away in the northern foothills of the Catskills. The price was right, so we set up a deal so that we could afford to buy it. The club fractured in half over this decision. The half that didn't go to Freehold either stopped flying, or went to other operations in the NYC metro area. Members bought RV's, and we put in campsites with hook-ups along the creek so that the CT folks could spend the weekends without driving back and forth. Now, ~15 years later, a lot of the old CT members are aging out, and Greene County is the poorest county in all of NY State, so although we do have some local members, getting more is a challenge. We do seem to be attracting some folks from the NYC area who have vacation homes in the vicinity. The field is paid for, and so is our fleet of 3 Twin Astirs, one G-102, a 1-26 and a Pawnee tug. Things could be a lot worse. It is a beautiful location. The neighbors are friendly, (no noise complaints) and nobody can kick us out. It's all ours. That's the main part. www.NutmegSoaring.org Don't think that real estate values in Europe are cheap either. They are very expensive, though a number of clubs have had government help in acquiring the airports they operate out of. Where there is a will, there is a way. Sometimes it takes a lot of time and teamwork to get to the goal though. RO |
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On Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at 12:17:02 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
You could buy a farm with sufficient space to grade and seed your own runway.Â* The farm house would make a terrific club house and the barn would be turned into a shop.Â* That would be a lot cheaper that $5-9 million and wouldn't have to be too far away from population centers. Yep- In the area we fly, in the lower Hudson Valley of New York, the farm would only be about 2 million. And that assumes the neighbors would not put up a fuss. UH |
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On Tue, 13 Mar 2018 13:08:41 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:
Maybe Rhinebeck would like a gliding club... Maybe they would, but for certain glider pilots would not. For many years my club (Cambridge Gliding Club) was based at Duxford, one of the WW2 Fighter Command stations. Some time in the late 80s/early 90s activity ramped up there with one of the the Imperial War Museum's aviation collections becoming more active on site, a number of historic aircraft restorers and flying groups moving in and air shows becoming more frequent. This had a major impact on club operations in summer, so CGC upped sticks and moved to its current site, which is far enough from Duxford to be undisturbed by any of its air shows. But, back to Old Rhinebeck: unless things have changed a lot since I worked in NYC in 1976/77 (and visited Old Rhinebeck as well as regularly flying models with the New York Skyscrapers on Galeville) the normal air show schedule at Old Rhinebeck would be hugely disruptive to any gliding operation there or in the immediate area. .... Glide Britain now has a YouTube channel featuring short promotional videos featuring various UK gliding sites. Some of you my find they give a better idea of how we operate on this side of the pond. Yes, the CGC video is on site now, together with Mendip (west England) and the York Gliding Centre. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAs...dSl3yHjvzH5nag -- Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org |
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