Cheap sailplanes

At the risk of embarrassment, at a college dance I was spouting off
about how I had soloed an Aeronca Champ in 11 hours of dual
during my 11th grade.

Then I found out she had soloed an Aeronca Champ in 7 hours of
dual during high school.

It must have worked a little bit, though. That was 40 years ago,
and she's still here.

Andreas Maurer wrote in message ...
On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 20:18:36 +0000, Robert Ehrlich
wrote:


I think a base ball or basket ball player can't understand
what satisfaction or enjoyment comes from that. This is why our
sport is declining.

It's not about putting a ball into a basket or hitting it with a piece
of wood.
It's about the girls watching you do that.

How many girls watched your low saves and wanted your phone number
after you had managed to get home?






Bye
Andreas

Brand,

George wouldn't be proud. Saddened perhaps. Alas, 1984 came and went
and no one's the wiser. Of course, that was the point of book. If you
enjoyed 1984, you might read his short essay... "Shooting an
Elephant." I'm sure you can google it up. We don't give Orwell nearly
enough credit, thinking of him more a sci fi writer than the keen
social observer he was.

I guess what's truly disheartening is that we keep making the same
mistakes. The least we can do is make new ones, if for nothing other
than variety's sake.

What has this to do with gliding? Some of you will get it.

Gotta go. Time to feed the proles.





(Brad) wrote in message . com...
who would be prouder to hear this Joeseph Goebbles or George Orwell?

Brad



"Roger Worden" wrote in message .com...
"Steve Hill" wrote in message
...
I think we ought to concentrate on finding a venue to air our
sport on TV...somehow. Anyone know anybody involved with WINGS??

From AOPA ePilot today:

DISCOVERY CHANNEL TURNS IN ITS WINGS
Discovery Communications will, on January 10, rename its Discovery Wings
Channel the Military Channel. Stories will focus on the troops, their
equipment, the Iraq war, and a behind-the-scenes look at actual military
operations. The channel won't abandon aviation forever, however. It will
still cover topics like military jet fighters (a show scheduled for January
28) and the world-famous Blue Angels flight demonstration team (scheduled
for March 18).

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

Soaring ain't going to become 'cool' anytime soon,
and I am not so sure it was in its heyday. So rather
then battling the fact that lumpy white old guys in
funny looking clothes are not a marketing tool...why
not examine who might be interested in an 'uncool'
activity.

The hang-glider population is not getting any younger,
and their landing gears continue to wear out...this
group seems to be making their way to sailplanes on
their own.

Software engineers seem to also be finding their way
to the sport...and the reality of the modern instrument
panel probably intrigues many of them.

I don't see young, fit skiers, snowboarders, parachutists,
cyclists as particularly fertile recruiting ground.


And once the vid-game generation comes of age...things
will probably get even quieter at the glider port.




At 15:00 04 December 2004, Chris Ocallaghan wrote:
Brand,

George wouldn't be proud. Saddened perhaps. Alas, 1984
came and went
and no one's the wiser. Of course, that was the point
of book. If you
enjoyed 1984, you might read his short essay... 'Shooting
an
Elephant.' I'm sure you can google it up. We don't
give Orwell nearly
enough credit, thinking of him more a sci fi writer
than the keen
social observer he was.

I guess what's truly disheartening is that we keep
making the same
mistakes. The least we can do is make new ones, if
for nothing other
than variety's sake.

What has this to do with gliding? Some of you will
get it.

Gotta go. Time to feed the proles.





(Brad) wrote in message news:...
who would be prouder to hear this Joeseph Goebbles
or George Orwell?

Brad



'Roger Worden' wrote in message news:...
'Steve Hill' wrote in message
...
I think we ought to concentrate on finding a venue
to air our
sport on TV...somehow. Anyone know anybody involved
with WINGS??

From AOPA ePilot today:

DISCOVERY CHANNEL TURNS IN ITS WINGS
Discovery Communications will, on January 10, rename
its Discovery Wings
Channel the Military Channel. Stories will focus
on the troops, their
equipment, the Iraq war, and a behind-the-scenes
look at actual military
operations. The channel won't abandon aviation forever,
however. It will
still cover topics like military jet fighters (a
show scheduled for January
28) and the world-famous Blue Angels flight demonstration
team (scheduled
for March 18).

In article ,
Mike Lindsay wrote:

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

I'll continue to say that some leadership opportunities in gliding clubs
(and all volunteer orginizations, for that matter) should give priority to
the LEAST qualified person. A flight committee headed by the LEAST
experienced CFI (who's willing to do it), the social committee headed by
the NEWEST member of the club. Then all the members agree to give them as
much support as possible. I've found the "leader" then asks for lots of
help, there is lots of interaction, the newer "leader" has more energy
than the more jaded members, and if for some reason things go wrong or
the rules are dumb, there is less entrenchment by the "leader," and
more forgiveness for the "leader."

At Avenal, when I was the newest CFI, I was very surprised when I asked
our operations guy and local DPE, Dan Gudgel, about our syllabus posted
on line and I suggested some changes, including "narrow runway training."
He said that the document could certainly use some updating, and welcomed
me to write an improved one.

Another senior instructor, Harold Gallagher, was talking about standardizing
our training. We talked for a while, and he essentially said "great, we've
discussed this, and you've talked to the other guys, and it'd be great if
you put something together and I bet we'd all love to use it as a guide."

True leadership involves being a good teacher, and a supportive follower
too. Leaders don't always lead from the front; in my experience they often
lead from the middle. The ideas and energy comes from the front, the
support and wisdom comes from the middle. Let the young whippersnappers
provide ideas and energy, while the others give wisdom (only when asked for),
support, and steady lifting.

and let the youngsters with backwards baseball caps,
wrap around shades and baggy pants drag soaring into the 21st century.

The wrap around shades are great for the open cockpit (like the
Blanik or PW-2) and the baggy pants come in VERY handy around the
Halloween, thanksgiving, and christmas holidays :P

Us
old farts are not doing too good a job of stewardship if you ask me.

One of the best run organizations I've ever seen is the Monterey Bay
99's. This womens' pilot organization gives out scholarships,
some big and some of just a few hundred dollars, to young and entering
women pilots. When these pilots make CFI, they then often give free
instruction to new scholarship winners. Really makes a buck go farther...

Creating this kind of incentive track seems like a real good idea.

Er, what younger people do you mean? At our club the average age of the
members attending on Wednesdays is just short of 70. It may be slightly
younger at weekends, but not by very much.

Hmmm...ours is 30-40. Maybe the family BBQs, easygoing rules, encouragement
of X-C, "fun" mini-races, etc. is paying off.

Of course having a private gliderport helps...
--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

In article ,
Roger Worden wrote:
It seems we ought to try to figure out ways to get our sport seen by more
eyeballs...and make sure that what people see...is cool...WAY COOL
DUDE!!!!

That seems to be a tough nut to crack. How can we get mass-media exposure
without buying it?

I'm writing the Sport Pilot article for Soaring, but EAA also wants one
from me about gliders to go in Sport Pilot magazine.

Another possibility is cross-pollenizing to Hang Gliding magazines.
A few ads in the classifieds, at least. C'mon, a big 'ol Nimbus
picture wouldn't get their attention

Orgs like SSA certainly don't have the funds to buy air
time. Paid ads on popular Internet sites with links to exciting video would
probably attract a lot of eyeballs, but I have no idea what that would cost.

I do NOT recomend trying to go down the path that parachuting is taking.
Have you seen their new competition format - I think it's called
"skimming" - where they negotiate a ground-level course just before landing?
It seems destined to attract the kind of "extreme sports" spectators that
only want to see crashes, and I think that's a terrible image to cultivate
for any branch of aviation.

Roger




--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

Peter Seddon wrote:



You've totally missed the point, in the UK this year the weather has been
so bad for flying that it's not only general flying that has been hit, the
two seater comp at the Wolds Gliding club was almost a wash out. My
caravan had a lake outside for almost every day and out of eight days we
only flew for three. When I look at my log book for the past four years
the number of flights have decereased each year and I have my own
aircraft. Our club is restricted to flying at weekends only and you can't
fly with a 1000ft ceiling of total cloud cover. Where I live I havn't seen
snow for a great number of years so naturally it drops as rain. Out of the
52 flying weekends last year, 4 were lost to holidays 6 were lost to
familly committments and about 30 were lost to bad weather. That 's the
reason gliding is declining for new members, people loose interest through
lack of flying weather. The UK has had three wery wet summers and mild wet
winters, days like last Sunday when I had 3hrs 3 mins to 12000ft are very
few and far between.

Peter.

Yes, but the point is that support for gliding is getting _worse_. The
weather isn't, in fact (and I speak from about 40 years experience in the
game), if anything it's getting better (remember global warming).

And although I take your point about this year, 2003 was one of the good
ones. (Certainly I managed 80 hours flying at a weekends only from North
Yorkshire, despite 6 weeks lost to health problems).

Clip
Where I live I havn't seen
snow for a great number of years so naturally it drops as rain. Out of
the
52 flying weekends last year, 4 were lost to holidays 6 were lost to
familly committments and about 30 were lost to bad weather. That 's the
reason gliding is declining for new members, people loose interest
through
lack of flying weather. The UK has had three wery wet summers and mild
wet
winters, days like last Sunday when I had 3hrs 3 mins to 12000ft are very
few and far between.

Peter.

Yes, but the point is that support for gliding is getting _worse_. The
weather isn't, in fact (and I speak from about 40 years experience in the
game), if anything it's getting better (remember global warming).

And although I take your point about this year, 2003 was one of the good
ones. (Certainly I managed 80 hours flying at a weekends only from North
Yorkshire, despite 6 weeks lost to health problems).





Not on the west coast it wasn't, although other thing conspired to keep our
club out of the air.

Peter

I think IMAGE is the key. When I was sailing a dingy, sailing clubs were
having the same problem attracting and keeping young sailors**. On the
other hand, the old salts were ignoring the board sailors whose numbers were
exploding. The sight of a flying board going 25 kts has SEX, and the sex
attracted lots of young men and women.

It may be that gliding clubs and sailing clubs need to expand there
memberships to include board sailors and pargliders. This is because board
sailors and paragliders who reach their mid-20's or 30's (having survived
and/or their knees give out) may want the increased comfort, competition,
and performance of the soaring glider. This would a natural path of
transition from young paraglider to mature glider pilot as well as provide
the key to revitalizing declining club membership rosters.

John in Burke, VA
On the ground.
**The $75K+ boats never seemed to have any problem attracting lots of
pretty young people; however, most $25K+ sailplanes only hold one person,
and there's no overnight parties on board either.

"Chris Davison" wrote in message
...
Chaps...you're missing the point. Gliding is not in
decline because it is expensive, nor is it the British
weather. Paragliding in the UK costs £125 a day to
learn, and after about 10 days you have your 'club
pilot' rating and can fly solo..you then spend about
£3,000 on harness, wing, reserve and vario etc, and
maybe on average £1000 a year upgrading that kit as
it wears out or becomes unfashionable. The costs above
are easily in line with gliding. This year, despite
the worst weather on record, PG schools are turning
new pupils away. There is only one factor which stops
gliding being as successful as Paragliding....IMAGE.

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.

If you want gliding to prosper (and I would suggest
many pilots don't actually want the sport to go through
the transformation required) then we need a Red Bull
or Nike or Sky Sports to take gliding, tear up the
reality and change the image...and then we need clubs
to sell that image to the public.

Until people grasp this, all the talk of 'better World
Class gliders' and 'cheap winch launches' is meaningless.


Me? My kids (10, 14 and 18) have no desire to go gliding,
it's what their dad does...but wow, do they want to
do the stuff they see on TV.

Nuff said.

Chris




At 22:00 03 December 2004, Peter Seddon wrote:

'Kilo Charlie' wrote in message
news:yB2sd.19804$KO5.10476@fed1read02...
Interesting argument. Also interesting responses
some of which have
nothing
to do with your original post. Must just be the grumpy
winter lurkers.

Sorry but the origional post said that the lack of
cheap gliders was
responsible for the decline in gliding. Not so, in
the UK the bad flying
weather over the past three years has put paid to more
of our members than
anything else.

I agree with you. Soaring has to be 'cool' again
in order to have it
survive. I'm not sure that reducing the costs somewhat
wouldn't help but
nevertheless that alone will not save it.

Come fly with us, no waiting time to join just pay
us £130 for a years
membership, £2 /min aerotow and 20p /min hire, how
cheap do you want it to
be.

It is an instant gratification world out there. Why
should a kid spend
countless hours learning how to do something and paying
the dues by
watching
others do it in front of them when they can get out
the X-box or Gameboy
and
go at it with minimal instruction, cost or delay?

I can agree with that!!! But I had great fun throwing
my B4 about the sky
trying to loose the last 5k feet. You dont get that
with an XBox.

Peter.

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 23:27:30 -0500, "JohnWN in Burke, VA"
wrote:

I think IMAGE is the key.

Soaring is in decline for a lot of reasons, some from without, some
from within. Declining real incomes, unsure futures, so called
"global economy" that looks to me like it might go ashcan, these don't
just effect soaring they effect most leisure actibities. Hobby supply
companies are going under daily, US machinery manufacturing is on the
skids, (Which were a lot of the higher paying jobs) more and more of
the auto industry is not in the US. Not much anyone can do about
those, but when you see very old names in the hobby industry
disappear, it's a pretty good sign that the expendable income isn't
there. Another indicator, when a new company does come up in the
hobby industry, it's almost always "high end", aimed at the limited
few that can afford the product, not at any mass market.

There is no one key, you're sitting at a 5 manual organ with AGO
pedalboard and trying to figure out which one will be the "key".
There ain't no magic bullet. Most people get their introduction to
flight today in the passenger compartment of a 747, a lot of them
don't even look out the window. Flying, for them, consists of getting
from one coast to the other before their competitor company does.

Kids, younger people, forget it. The kids might have a few bucks to
play with, but the early 20 to late 30 bracket is more interested in
keeping home and family in the same place. With no chance that you
won't be forced to find another job, don't look for them to jump into
something that's a constant drain on their income, it won't happen.
The three families nearest me, all of them, are having a pretty bad
time keeping going, one halfway down the block is being "relocated",
with the normal cut in income. No stability whatsoever, that's pretty
hard to overcome. But it's still only one reason, and not the only
one.

SSA rejected associating formally with the HG community in the '70's.
Paragliding is currently merging with HG. Not sure much can be done in the
near term. However, I could see the viability of a broader soaring
community at some point.

Frank Whiteley

"JohnWN in Burke, VA" wrote in message
news:Qcwsd.33$ln.2@lakeread06...
I think IMAGE is the key. When I was sailing a dingy, sailing clubs were
having the same problem attracting and keeping young sailors**. On the
other hand, the old salts were ignoring the board sailors whose numbers
were
exploding. The sight of a flying board going 25 kts has SEX, and the sex
attracted lots of young men and women.

It may be that gliding clubs and sailing clubs need to expand there
memberships to include board sailors and pargliders. This is because
board
sailors and paragliders who reach their mid-20's or 30's (having survived
and/or their knees give out) may want the increased comfort, competition,
and performance of the soaring glider. This would a natural path of
transition from young paraglider to mature glider pilot as well as provide
the key to revitalizing declining club membership rosters.

John in Burke, VA
On the ground.
**The $75K+ boats never seemed to have any problem attracting lots of
pretty young people; however, most $25K+ sailplanes only hold one person,
and there's no overnight parties on board either.

"Chris Davison" wrote in message
...
Chaps...you're missing the point. Gliding is not in
decline because it is expensive, nor is it the British
weather. Paragliding in the UK costs £125 a day to
learn, and after about 10 days you have your 'club
pilot' rating and can fly solo..you then spend about
£3,000 on harness, wing, reserve and vario etc, and
maybe on average £1000 a year upgrading that kit as
it wears out or becomes unfashionable. The costs above
are easily in line with gliding. This year, despite
the worst weather on record, PG schools are turning
new pupils away. There is only one factor which stops
gliding being as successful as Paragliding....IMAGE.

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.

If you want gliding to prosper (and I would suggest
many pilots don't actually want the sport to go through
the transformation required) then we need a Red Bull
or Nike or Sky Sports to take gliding, tear up the
reality and change the image...and then we need clubs
to sell that image to the public.

Until people grasp this, all the talk of 'better World
Class gliders' and 'cheap winch launches' is meaningless.


Me? My kids (10, 14 and 18) have no desire to go gliding,
it's what their dad does...but wow, do they want to
do the stuff they see on TV.

Nuff said.

Chris




At 22:00 03 December 2004, Peter Seddon wrote:

'Kilo Charlie' wrote in message
news:yB2sd.19804$KO5.10476@fed1read02...
Interesting argument. Also interesting responses
some of which have
nothing
to do with your original post. Must just be the grumpy
winter lurkers.

Sorry but the origional post said that the lack of
cheap gliders was
responsible for the decline in gliding. Not so, in
the UK the bad flying
weather over the past three years has put paid to more
of our members than
anything else.

I agree with you. Soaring has to be 'cool' again
in order to have it
survive. I'm not sure that reducing the costs somewhat
wouldn't help but
nevertheless that alone will not save it.

Come fly with us, no waiting time to join just pay
us £130 for a years
membership, £2 /min aerotow and 20p /min hire, how
cheap do you want it to
be.

It is an instant gratification world out there. Why
should a kid spend
countless hours learning how to do something and paying
the dues by
watching
others do it in front of them when they can get out
the X-box or Gameboy
and
go at it with minimal instruction, cost or delay?

I can agree with that!!! But I had great fun throwing
my B4 about the sky
trying to loose the last 5k feet. You dont get that
with an XBox.

Peter.