Cheap sailplanes

tango4 wrote:
The 'which glider should we make cheaply' , 'glider classes' and some of
the traditional 'winter threads' seem to be based on the premise that if we
could build a 40:1 sailplane for some nominal amount then the steady decline
in worldwide sailplane pilot numbers can be stemmed.

I am yet to be convinced that aircraft cost is the major threshold to entry
into the sport of soaring. I remain firmly convinced that even if we came up
with a near zero cost aircraft we would do little more than temporarily halt
the decline.

Absolutely. The market will work for gliding as it does with most
things. Already, I know of three 25-30 year old glass gliders bought by
young men from deceased estates for trivial prices (a perfectly good
PIK-20B for $12000, for example). Cost isn't/won't be the problem.
Real prices will go on falling as the number of available gliders grows
at a faster rate than the number of buyers.

In the UK annual membership of a golf club costs about the same as joining a
gliding club and flying club ships for the same period.

Ditto for a dinghy sailing club - based on joining a club and renting
dingies.

Our club runs a 'scholarship' incentive for a number of student pilots each
year, basically they fly for free, their bills being carried by the rest of
the membership. We don't have hundreds of applicants for the scholarships,
just sufficient.

Most operations have a continuous stream of intro riders, the conversion
rate to sailplane pilots is astonishingly low though, in the order of a few
percent.

Todays youth have more disposable income than most of us could ever have
dreamed of at their age and in the future they are likely to have more
leisure time and even more money. Flying has to become something that
youngsters 'want to do' it has to become cool. Rather than sticking with the
old way of doing things perhaps we should fire every club committee member
on the planet over 30 and let the youngsters with backwards baseball caps,
wrap around shades and baggy pants drag soaring into the 21st century. Us
old farts are not doing too good a job of stewardship if you ask me.

We need a new approach.

No we don't. It won't die with us. There will always be a few young
men who are attracted to soaring. Many will come to it later though
because its attractions are available in other sports as well these days.

Meanwhile old committee members are needed to steward the assets of the
clubs. What the young get for free won't be appreciated and the
embarrassing sight of old farts offering metaphorical boiled lollies to
teenagers is to be avoided at all costs. When they win the fight over
our dead bodies they'll actually care for what they get their hands on.
What will make youngsters want to be part of soaring is us grey heads
refusing to let them have it. The ones it will be worth passing it on
to will be those who care enough to fight us for it.

And we're doing a great job at stewardship. The major threat to the
existence of many clubs is property development attempting to drive us
from our airfields. How useful are teenagers in fighting those battles?
A committe of 20-somethings would lose at the first round and what
would be left then? Give me a bunch of old men who have the patience
and persistence and experience and rat-cunning to win these civic battles.

Certainly the young will take over in the end - but why should I/we make
our sport unpleasant for ourselves by changing all the things about it
which the majority of us enjoy? I'm only here once the same as the
young. Why should their preferences have priority? They can have it
later and remake it any way they like. They can buy my gliders cheaply
too. But not yet.

Graeme Cant

http://www.ardice.com/Regional/Ocean...es/A/Adelaide/

Bert Willing wrote:

And in Europe, gliding for youngster asks for a budget very much like
skiing, horse riding, small motorcycles or whatever a 16 years old fancies
to do (and it's those 16 years old kid who are the future of soaring, not
any of those 50-years-old-catching-up-with-their-dreams folks) and gets the
money for anyways.

Well, I'm one of those catching-up-with-their-dreams folks and I see no
reason why 16 year olds' fickle fancies are worth more to gliding than
my dedication. Is my money a different colour? Do I work less hard for
the club? Why shouldn't gliding be a sport for middle-aged men? We're
too old to steal hubcaps.

And what do you mean by "the future of soaring"? If Eur200,000 gliders
are the future - and they're certainly the present - then sure as hell
16 year olds don't figure much in that future. Yes, there's room for
teenagers in gliding just like there is in ocean racing, and teenagers
are the future of gliding just like they're the future of ocean racing.

As you said, we need a new approach - at least the ration "airborne
time/time running around on the field" has to be greatly improved, and those
"because-we-have-done-it-like-this-for-the-last-fifty-years" farts have to
be dumped...

Try it.

If the teenagers don't like the effort involved, then 50year olds WILL
be the future of gliding because they WILL make the effort. If
teenagers don't like the way things are done, 50 year olds who DO like
these ways will be the future of gliding.

Why are you concerned about this nebulous "future" anyway? Enjoy your
gliding NOW. Do what you want to do in gliding NOW. When you don't
want to keep doing it, LEAVE. Someone else WILL take your place.

It won't be a teenager.

Gliding's fine (except for the IGC). Leave it alone.

Graeme Cant

Graeme Cant wrote:

Absolutely. The market will work for gliding as it does with most
things. Already, I know of three 25-30 year old glass gliders bought by
young men from deceased estates for trivial prices (a perfectly good
PIK-20B for $12000, for example). Cost isn't/won't be the problem.
Real prices will go on falling as the number of available gliders grows
at a faster rate than the number of buyers.

Corollary when the sport will be almost dying.

--

Michel TALON

Hmm, now I'm 30 and when I was 14-22 I spent the whole summer at the
airports. Sitting in the winch, pulling the cable, handling gliders,
retrieving sailplanes, working on contests etc-etc. How many people can
afford it once you have to work for your family...?
I do think we should attract young members but we have to optimize our
activity. For example when I started the basic training we were about 35
for only one IS28B2 It was just impossible to fly for all of us.

/Janos


Graeme Cant wrote:
Bert Willing wrote:

And in Europe, gliding for youngster asks for a budget very much like
skiing, horse riding, small motorcycles or whatever a 16 years old
fancies to do (and it's those 16 years old kid who are the future of
soaring, not any of those 50-years-old-catching-up-with-their-dreams
folks) and gets the money for anyways.


Well, I'm one of those catching-up-with-their-dreams folks and I see no
reason why 16 year olds' fickle fancies are worth more to gliding than
my dedication. Is my money a different colour? Do I work less hard for
the club? Why shouldn't gliding be a sport for middle-aged men? We're
too old to steal hubcaps.

And what do you mean by "the future of soaring"? If Eur200,000 gliders
are the future - and they're certainly the present - then sure as hell
16 year olds don't figure much in that future. Yes, there's room for
teenagers in gliding just like there is in ocean racing, and teenagers
are the future of gliding just like they're the future of ocean racing.

As you said, we need a new approach - at least the ration "airborne
time/time running around on the field" has to be greatly improved, and
those "because-we-have-done-it-like-this-for-the-last-fifty-years"
farts have to be dumped...


Try it.

If the teenagers don't like the effort involved, then 50year olds WILL
be the future of gliding because they WILL make the effort. If
teenagers don't like the way things are done, 50 year olds who DO like
these ways will be the future of gliding.

Why are you concerned about this nebulous "future" anyway? Enjoy your
gliding NOW. Do what you want to do in gliding NOW. When you don't
want to keep doing it, LEAVE. Someone else WILL take your place.

It won't be a teenager.

Gliding's fine (except for the IGC). Leave it alone.

Graeme Cant

I really don't get all this paranoia about the sport dying...We have a group
of folks coming along, who absolutely LOVE thrills. The Gen X crowd is on
its way and though it might be a few years, it'll get to us when it's ready.
We just have to be ready to receive them and train them and help them move
along and become part of us...things will change, but that's
inevitable...Why all the worry???

We need to do what we are doing...ask questions, and try to set change in
motion and find ways to do a better job where and when we can. Soaring isn't
going to die now or anytime soon. If clubs fail, new clubs will form.
Different, but there will always be soaring in one way or another. As long
as one guy jumps off a hill with a paraglider, another guy will look for a
better way to go faster and farther...ultimately there will be an
equillibrium attained with regards to sailplane prices and
performance...it's called a free market....it never seems to disappoint.
Hell...at my airport we had to kids show up with hang gliders and a
homebuilt winch contraption, built from an old Roto-tiller...it didn't
work...but they were thinking and trying!!

I guess what is bugging me is how many people start echoing all the "end of
soaring" crap...RELAX...we'll be fine...just let's be positive and work to
bring new enthused young folks...old folks and middle aged folks into our
fold.

Soaring is a thing you either "get"...or "don't get"...the ones who "get it"
will find their way into our sport. We just need to provide more stimulus in
the form of what people can see, in order for it to be better recognized.
When people see it and start wondering about how they can try it, then
growth will occur. Since it's such a topic on here, I think we can all make
the effort to simply start out by taking ONE person for a glider ride next
year...hopefully a person who would have the logical possibility of being
one of those folks who'd have some level of interest...Man...think of
it...what would happen if next year we got say....1,000 new and additional
glider pilots added to our ranks. Over and above our attrition, that would
be a great start.

We....are the solution. Tell your friends...find a person...seek out one
individual and try to hook em!!!!



Steve.

Stewart Kissel wrote:
Hmmm, the George Orwell references are a little over
my head...but perhaps I am on a parallel track and
don't know it.

You have read "1984", have you not?

If not, then run -- do not walk -- to your local library and demand a
copy. It is the prequel to the 21st Century as we are living it.


Jack

Well although it may/may not be a 'prequel' to how
we are living...how this applies to soaring still has
me mystified.




At 19:30 06 December 2004, Jack wrote:
Stewart Kissel wrote:
Hmmm, the George Orwell references are a little over
my head...but perhaps I am on a parallel track and
don't know it.

You have read '1984', have you not?

If not, then run -- do not walk -- to your local library
and demand a
copy. It is the prequel to the 21st Century as we
are living it.


Jack

Snip 1...

At 05:30 05 December 2004, Johnwn In Burke, Va wrote:
There is only one factor which stops
gliding being as successful as Paragliding....IMAGE.


Snip 2...

The image of the average UK gliding club is being
full
of old people in wooden gliders...the image of paragliding
is young, daredevils jumping off hills. Neither image
is correct...but it's perception that matters.




Apologies to those in this picture who may feel slighted...my
intent was to post what I perceive as a fairly accurate
image of our sport...and the challenge of making this
image cool.

http://windpath.ca/news/images/dv_lgpix/2_F1030012.jpg

Good point.

Now, go to this site and download some videos and see how the European
youngsters see the sport there.
http://www.alpenstreckenflug.de/text...dingvideos.htm

There couldn't be more contrast.

(The files may be too big for the bandwidth challenged.)

Bill Daniels


"Stewart Kissel" wrote in
message ...
Snip 1...

At 05:30 05 December 2004, Johnwn In Burke, Va wrote:
There is only one factor which stops
gliding being as successful as Paragliding....IMAGE.


Snip 2...

The image of the average UK gliding club is being
full
of old people in wooden gliders...the image of paragliding
is young, daredevils jumping off hills. Neither image
is correct...but it's perception that matters.




Apologies to those in this picture who may feel slighted...my
intent was to post what I perceive as a fairly accurate
image of our sport...and the challenge of making this
image cool.

http://windpath.ca/news/images/dv_lgpix/2_F1030012.jpg