What percentage of USA glider pilots compete?

toad wrote:
On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy

HL Falbaum wrote:
I have no factual data, but this is r.a.s. afterall!

The number I keep hearing is about 10-15 thousand.

Why is it important to know the percentage?

It is not important.

Jeremy

OK--just curious.

--
Hartley Falbaum
"Jeremy Zawodny" wrote in message
...
HL Falbaum wrote:
I have no factual data, but this is r.a.s. afterall!

The number I keep hearing is about 10-15 thousand.

Why is it important to know the percentage?

It is not important.

Jeremy

"Jeremy Zawodny" wrote in message
...
I'm curious to know if anyone knows what percentage of USA based glider
pilots fly in official contests (less formal individual club contests are
less interesting to me). If I were to use my personal contacts (the
pilots I fly with), I'd put the number around 10-15% but given the amount
of coverage given to competitions, I'm starting to wonder if that's
anywhere close to being accurate.

Tim Mara wrote:
I'd bet this number is less than 1%!

If Udo's count of 592 pilots is correct, that would suggest 60,000 USA
based glider pilots, truly good news for the sport!

In Region 8, about 20-30 pilots show up for our Regional. I'm sure there
aren't 2000-3000 glider pilots in the Region, but more like 300, perhaps
400.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

If anything I think you are underestimating the percentage who are
inactive.

My estimates are 5 to 6 thousand active glider pilots in the US.


On Mar 28, 12:35 pm, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:
toad wrote:
On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy

A potentially more interesting (and much less knowable) number would
be what percentage of the total time flown is flown by competition
pilots. I think that might give a more accurate picture. Or
not...

P3

On Mar 28, 5:08 pm, wrote:
If anything I think you are underestimating the percentage who are
inactive.

My estimates are 5 to 6 thousand active glider pilots in the US.

On Mar 28, 12:35 pm, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:



toad wrote:
On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

An even better metric would be percentage of miles flown.

On Mar 28, 5:56 pm, "Papa3" wrote:
A potentially more interesting (and much less knowable) number would
be what percentage of the total time flown is flown by competition
pilots. I think that might give a more accurate picture. Or
not...

P3

On Mar 28, 5:08 pm, wrote:

If anything I think you are underestimating the percentage who are
inactive.

My estimates are 5 to 6 thousand active glider pilots in the US.

On Mar 28, 12:35 pm, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:

toad wrote:
On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Mar 28, 12:54 pm, wrote:
Jeremy Zawodny wrote:
I'm curious to know if anyone knows what percentage of USA based glider
pilots fly in official contests (less formal individual club contests
are less interesting to me). If I were to use my personal contacts (the
pilots I fly with), I'd put the number around 10-15% but given the
amount of coverage given to competitions, I'm starting to wonder if
that's anywhere close to being accurate.

Jeremy
HpH 304C #62

Do you mean "compete", or "fly in contests" ?
Best Regards, Dave "YO" ;-)

PS: Remember that competition drives the glider technology and
the used ships available to the market...

Excellent Point Dave. You get guys like me, with state of the art
gliders, and top notch piloting skills. Better watch out at the
Region 7 Sports Class. Im going to put big Slow Moving Vehicle Orange
triangles on the rudders and then fly in a sideslip the whole time so
that you can see me way out in front. If your battery dies and you
have to land out Ill come get you dont worry

And of course you get these yahoos with 25:1 antique wood and fabric
ships who are crazy enough to sign up for a contest while only hoping
to get their silver badge in the next few months. Not gonna be
competitive, but I suppose they'll have fun.

Papa3 wrote:
A potentially more interesting (and much less knowable) number would
be what percentage of the total time flown is flown by competition
pilots. I think that might give a more accurate picture. Or
not...

P3

On Mar 28, 5:08 pm, wrote:

If anything I think you are underestimating the percentage who are
inactive.

My estimates are 5 to 6 thousand active glider pilots in the US.

On Mar 28, 12:35 pm, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:




toad wrote:

On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -



Maybe not significant - I am a "casual" competitor in that I only fly regionals,
and have a club class ship.

I fly one day most weekends - am an instructor at a little club, so will put in
at least two or three instruction flights per day at the field. When I get a
chance, I strap the Std Cirrus on and go XC.

I do have the GNSS logger and PDA and contest number abnd FAI license so I
suppose I am not that much of a dilletante but - basically I am a non-contest
pilot who occasionally competes.

Taking total flying time in last year an dividing by the time for the little bit
of competition flying I managed.

Contest Hours 51.92%
Contest Launches 14.29%

Contest flight duration 381.82% of Average

Contest flying pushes your boundaries. Teaches you things and most importantly
gets me flying - long challenging flights, instead of around the goldfish bowl
in a 30-40 year old vintage trainer.

Some are in a better position I am sure at their clubs.

Jeremy.

I assume by 'coverage', you mean how much attention
comps get in the soaring press..?

That speaks for itself because competition is a big
happening in soaring, wherever we are.

It would be interesting to get some feedback from the
editors of Soaring, and/or S&G as to what percentage
of column inches is given to competition reports over
a year's worth of issues.

Just my 10c worth...

;o)





At 17:30 28 March 2007, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:
I'm curious to know if anyone knows what percentage
of USA based glider
pilots fly in official contests (less formal individual
club contests
are less interesting to me). If I were to use my personal
contacts (the
pilots I fly with), I'd put the number around 10-15%
but given the
amount of coverage given to competitions, I'm starting
to wonder if
that's anywhere close to being accurate.

Jeremy
HpH 304C #62


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