Growth in soaring

Bert Willing wrote:
I think that is nonsense. As long as youngsters can afford to go paragliding
(did you ever look into the cost of paragliding?) or skiing, money isn't the
problem.


I think we are living in totally different sides of the society. I live
in a side where researchers and professors, and i don't speak of
students have barely enough money to support their family, and not to go
skying or other high expense stuff. I am old enough to have known a time
when very ordinary workers were able to afford gliding, and were the
majority of gliding clubs. With reasonings such as yours, these people
have gradually been excluded from clubs.

--

Michel TALON

There's one important point that I haven't seen others put into the
discussion.

Taking your comment - (1975 we would make about 150 flights on a Sat & Sun)
I started in 1971 in Cyprus and trained on T21's, circuits were almost 4
minutes on
a good day and at the speed of landing you were never far from the launch
point.
It was easy in those days to get 50 or 60 launches in, with out rush using a
single cable
winch and a tractor as cable puller on our narrow runaway.

Now we tend to fly for longer, the costs are relative high in monitory terms
so we pick
when to fly.

I just wonder how the hours flown stack up now to those days. I know from
my data
which I have put into my own Excel sheet that my averages are dramatically
better now.

But the cost in time & money does mean you have to be dedicated on those
winter circuit
days. I'm lucky though that at my club in North Wales (Denbigh) we have a
good ridge
and excellent wave. Hence the reason our visitors last week got gold and
diamonds heights.

Malcolm..




"fred" wrote in message
oups.com...
A question often asked is "Why has the glider activity declined?" In
1975 we would make about 150 flights on a Sat & Sun. Nothing like that
now but we had our best year 2006 in a long time. The decline (I
believe) is the competition for disposable time Vegas is many times
larger, Indian Casinos abound. Water craft, off road vehicles etc all
compete.
A well known ride operator told me that 1800gliderrides expected to
sell FOUR MILLION in rides in 2007. All sold on the internet. They
have no operations of their own, but have about 900 domain names, most
of them the same. USE CAUTION. fred

Well,

If you pay a glider 72,000 Euros and can get 12,000 hours out of it, the
amortization of the glider is 6 Euros per hour. That's not expensive.

In my club here in Switzerland we have people from all parts of society
(even school boys), we have all sorts of expensive gliders, and we have
aeroto launching.

If you go to Vinon or to Challes, it's the same thing. I don't see the
people you talk about being excluded from soaring through cost.


"Michel Talon" wrote in message I think we are
living in totally different sides of the society. I live
in a side where researchers and professors, and i don't speak of
students have barely enough money to support their family, and not to go
skying or other high expense stuff. I am old enough to have known a time
when very ordinary workers were able to afford gliding, and were the
majority of gliding clubs. With reasonings such as yours, these people
have gradually been excluded from clubs.

--

Michel TALON

Bert Willing wrote:
Well,

If you pay a glider 72,000 Euros and can get 12,000 hours out of it, the
amortization of the glider is 6 Euros per hour. That's not expensive.

In my club here in Switzerland we have people from all parts of society
(even school boys), we have all sorts of expensive gliders, and we have
aeroto launching.

If you go to Vinon or to Challes, it's the same thing. I don't see the
people you talk about being excluded from soaring through cost.


Here around Paris, i see that gliders are rented at a much higher price
that what you mention. Let me take the CVVFR which is known to be one of
the least expensive in the region, runned only by volunteers, so there
is absolutely nothing here devoted to salaries. Everything is published
on the web, easily accessible at http://cvvfr.free.fr
Price is
LS4-Janus-Pegase 17,40 euros/hour
LS 8, 15, 18 mètres 23,50 euros/hour
Duo-Discus 30,60 euros/hour

or, and this is a novelty, there is a possibility to pay a global sum

"Forfait heures illimitées"

On ASK21, ASK23, LS4, Janus, Pégase 1000 euros 1350 euros

i suppose that 1000 is for people aged less than 25.

To that you need to add the club cotisation and insurances. Let us say
around 300 euros if you come in winter to work on gliders or around
450 euros otherwise.

And then, cherry on the cake

Towing at 500 meters 20 euros ( aged 25) 23 (aged more 25)

So i clearly see something of the order of 2000 euros/year, and i am
quite sure you will have hard time to find less expensive while still
decent around Paris - and by the way i doubt very much it is less
expensive in the Alps.

Beleive it or not, 2000 euros is a non negligible sum for a lot of
people, particularly for those who have a lot of free time in their
hands to go to the gliderport. I am not speaking of the case of people
who can afford the luxury to buy their own glider. Anf finally there are
skying clubs also, and youngsters can afford to go skying using such
services for a fraction of the above cost. Myself being a parent, i know
i would have difficulties forking the above sum of money for each of my
children if they did want to do gliding, while i had no problem with
skying.




--

Michel TALON

These prices are not bad, and the amount I cited only covers the
amortization of the glider (which is not the only cost involved).
Youngsters in France still get a reasonable amount of money as a"bourse",
and when I was starting gliding at the age of 16, I never asked my parents
to pay the bill, but I moved my ass and did some little jobs to earn money.
Of course, my parents helped me a little bit, but they wouldn't have had the
means to pay it all.
Now, if youngsters switch to the "assisted mode", they may well stay with
their Nintendos.


"Michel Talon" wrote in message Here around
Paris, i see that gliders are rented at a much higher price
that what you mention. Let me take the CVVFR which is known to be one of
the least expensive in the region, runned only by volunteers, so there
is absolutely nothing here devoted to salaries. Everything is published
on the web, easily accessible at http://cvvfr.free.fr
Price is
LS4-Janus-Pegase 17,40 euros/hour
LS 8, 15, 18 mètres 23,50 euros/hour
Duo-Discus 30,60 euros/hour

or, and this is a novelty, there is a possibility to pay a global sum

"Forfait heures illimitées"

On ASK21, ASK23, LS4, Janus, Pégase 1000 euros 1350 euros

i suppose that 1000 is for people aged less than 25.

To that you need to add the club cotisation and insurances. Let us say
around 300 euros if you come in winter to work on gliders or around
450 euros otherwise.

And then, cherry on the cake

Towing at 500 meters 20 euros ( aged 25) 23 (aged more 25)

So i clearly see something of the order of 2000 euros/year, and i am
quite sure you will have hard time to find less expensive while still
decent around Paris - and by the way i doubt very much it is less
expensive in the Alps.

Beleive it or not, 2000 euros is a non negligible sum for a lot of
people, particularly for those who have a lot of free time in their
hands to go to the gliderport. I am not speaking of the case of people
who can afford the luxury to buy their own glider. Anf finally there are
skying clubs also, and youngsters can afford to go skying using such
services for a fraction of the above cost. Myself being a parent, i know
i would have difficulties forking the above sum of money for each of my
children if they did want to do gliding, while i had no problem with
skying.




--

Michel TALON

Bert Willing wrote:
These prices are not bad, and the amount I cited only covers the
amortization of the glider (which is not the only cost involved).
Youngsters in France still get a reasonable amount of money as a"bourse",
and when I was starting gliding at the age of 16, I never asked my parents
to pay the bill, but I moved my ass and did some little jobs to earn money.
Of course, my parents helped me a little bit, but they wouldn't have had the
means to pay it all.
Now, if youngsters switch to the "assisted mode", they may well stay with
their Nintendos.


Now we agree, the prices are of the order i mentioned or higher, and
youngsters probably need to work during holidays to afford that. Then
they need to go to the gliderport (costs money, gazoline, etc.) and
spend all day long pushing gliders to fly perhaps 1 hour during the day.
Repeat that a fair number of days during the year. And you are surprised
they don't show in big numbers in the clubs?


--

Michel TALON

Now that is an entirely different reason, to which I agree. Once you are
able to offer a flat rate (like 1,000 Euros), it doesn't matter that much
what the gliders did cost (amortization is a relatively small part of the
hourly cost). It still matters what the launch costs, and the clubs in
France better switch to winches rather than operating those money-sucking
Moranes.
Now if a 17 or 18 year old doesn't want to earn a little money during
holidays to make gliding happen, then he is not that much motivated.
If he does make this effort, then the club should offer him something more
rewarding than pushing around gliders for the best part of the day. At my
time, I was ok with that, but the youngsters today have much more of a
choice for "thrilling activities" with immediate reward...

"Michel Talon" wrote in message
...

Now we agree, the prices are of the order i mentioned or higher, and
youngsters probably need to work during holidays to afford that. Then
they need to go to the gliderport (costs money, gazoline, etc.) and
spend all day long pushing gliders to fly perhaps 1 hour during the day.
Repeat that a fair number of days during the year. And you are surprised
they don't show in big numbers in the clubs?


--

Michel TALON

Michael Ash writes
Most people probably know where their local airport is and have
some idea of how to procure an airplane ride if they felt like it, but how
many people know where their nearest glider operation is located? How many
realize that they could start learning as early as the next weekend and
they could be flying solo in just a couple dozen flights?

I've lived within spitting distance of two glider clubs for about
fifteen years, was vaguely aware of one of them and oblivious to the
presence of the other until I finally decided the day had come for me to
do something about a life-long ambition of learning to glide and went
looking for the options.

I was shocked at how comparatively little it cost financially against
what I'd expected, and quite just how welcoming the club I joined turned
out to be towards newcomers like me. I was somewhat remorseful that I
hadn't realised this years ago. Had I done so, I'd have learnt to soar
in my late teens and early twenties, rather than trying to do so in my
mid thirties with all the other competing demands and responsibilities
that life at this point seems to bring.

I solo'd, got my bronze. Loved every second of it.

I'm not flying at the moment and missing it like hell, especially now
the sky has started popping with Cu and the new soaring season has
started. But it was time, not money that's put my soaring on hold for
the moment.

I have a couple of boys, aged seven and twelve respectively. Soaring is
something of a solo pursuit and one that absorbs whole days at the
weekend, and a gliding field is not a place for young kids, however
accommodating the club or friends and associates at the club might try
to be.

So for the minute, we've switched to sailing dinghies on a local pond,
and the boys laugh at me every time they catch me staring wistfully at
the sky and not paying attention to where I'm pointing the boat.

I guess my long-winded point is that whilst I agree with something a
previous poster wrote, people that want to glide find gliding, gliding
doesn't find them, I can't help but think that had gliding been just a
little more visible to me all those years back gliding would have had a
good few years out of me before I had my family instead of now having to
wait until my family grows up enough to let their dad back out to play
with the gliders again!

Even when there's a predisposition to the adventure of learning to fly,
aviation just doesn't figure into the everyday life of the everyday
bloke on the street. It's a completely different and quite alien world
to the uninitiated.

--
Bill Gribble
http://www.harlequin.uk.net
http://www.scapegoatsanon.demon.co.uk
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson

.... I've been trying to post this for days from my usual account and
it's not been working. Another try:

I am often puzzled about
the amount of effort put into trying to recruit youth into soaring.
Our true market is the middle age and not youth.

Youth are the one steady renewable resource, more born every minute
not already committed to other things. Soaring is not just one
generation's opportunity (yours, mine...), and what membership
organization does NOT recruit youth? Also ("soaring needs youth") the
sport works better with young muscles and minds, people willing to
work cheap and long as towpilots, club officers etc., who buy old
equipment, learn fast. And ("youth need soaring") it is a noble role
in society for us to offer soaring to adolescents (as education,
career-building, socialization, for which sailplane communities are
excellent) and many existing glider guiders really enjoy taking part.
See:

http://www.ssa.org/Youth/youthships.asp
http://www.coloradosoaring.org/ssa/ssay/ycom.htm
http://www.greeleynet.com/~jhpc/SSAYouth.ppt
http://www.coloradosoaring.org/ssa/ssay/sailyth.htm

Hang-glider pilots sprang out of the 1970s, paragliders out of the
1990s, but soaring had already been a passion of people from the
1930s, 1950s... all were young once and many (most?) got hooked in
their youth.

I don't think enough effort is given to
market our sport to this segment, especially not to the hang gliding
and paragliding world (where I came from).

I see more fresh high-level individualist pilots from that "world"
than anywhere else. So whatever is happening is already working.
Thank you.

--JHC

On 16 Mar 2007 11:28:12 -0700, "fred"
wrote:

A question often asked is "Why has the glider activity declined?"
A well known ride operator told me that 1800gliderrides expected to
sell FOUR MILLION in rides in 2007.

I live in Italy, and I base my observations on club-managed soaring
activity. Almost no commercial operations are available in my country,
and are quite rare in Europe.

I believe that promotion of our sport can't benefit from glider rides.
Glider riders are expensive, not much fun, and a typical "been there,
done that" situation.
Intruduction courses are much better at retaining new members.
Costs are not the main reason for not getting into gliding.
Fear is.
Gliding is dangerous, IMVHO, or at least perceived as dangerous.

I have spoken with quite a number of people who have quit gliding
after a few or many years. Cost is the first topic they provide, but
if you ask some questions, available time (work, family) is generally
the 2nd. The third is having achieved only small goals (or, high
expectations and lesser results; results/costs ratio); this is
definitely harder to admit for most.
Finally, two topics get into play, and I strongly believe they are
most important:
.. the quality of sociality in the club, or the bad quality of human
relations (quarrelling between groups of members, disagreements, poor
management of the club, sometimes even intrusions in very private
aspects of family life...)
.. safety of the sport. In the 15 years of my gliding career, my
phonebook spots a black line in almost every page.

Sociality can be very hard to manage, bust must be addressed by the
club's management. When fights and quarrelling are going on, and the
members feel they have to "choose which side they should stand", or
they struggle to keep themselves out of the fight, my experience is
that the club will loose about 10percent of its members. And most of
the rest are quite unhappy.
I expect that commercial operations might be less prone to this
problem. If the operator is customer-oriented, of course.

Safety, and the achievement of reasonable goals, can in part be
addressed by a group of volunteers devoted to personalized, advanced
cross-country techiniques. But, it takes some very special kind of
people, to stay in gliding for a long time at high level of
commitment, like most of us do. We can't expect everyone to be like
us.

I believe any promotion/retention strategy can't be complete if it
doesn't aim at these two topics also.

Aldo Cernezzi