SSA Booth April 4-6 at nations largest RC exhibition

The SSA will have a display booth at the upcoming RC Exhibition to be held April 4-6 in Toledo, OH.

Info he http://www.toledoshow.com/

Our booth will have all kinds of new SSA event signage (thanks Lane), soaring video's running on a 65 inch LCD, sailplane models and most importantly will be selling SSA FAST packages to RC enthusiasts (huge youth demographic) perhaps interested in experiencing true flight (via the SSA's new square account).

If you are in the MIchigan/Ohio/Indiana area and are interested in helping "man the SSA booth" and share your passion about soaring with a bright and high energy audience, let me know! We could still use a few more hands.

The exhibition itself (largest RC event in North America) is an incredible display of new RC technology. One of the great things about this event is that it is very heavy on the ultra high end RC sailplane competition products. If your in the neighborhood it may be a fun way to spend a few hours over the weekend.

Sincerely,

Sean

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 5:09:07 PM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
The SSA will have a display booth at the upcoming RC Exhibition to be held April 4-6 in Toledo, OH.



Info he http://www.toledoshow.com/



Our booth will have all kinds of new SSA event signage (thanks Lane), soaring video's running on a 65 inch LCD, sailplane models and most importantly will be selling SSA FAST packages to RC enthusiasts (huge youth demographic) perhaps interested in experiencing true flight (via the SSA's new square account).



If you are in the MIchigan/Ohio/Indiana area and are interested in helping "man the SSA booth" and share your passion about soaring with a bright and high energy audience, let me know! We could still use a few more hands.



The exhibition itself (largest RC event in North America) is an incredible display of new RC technology. One of the great things about this event is that it is very heavy on the ultra high end RC sailplane competition products. If your in the neighborhood it may be a fun way to spend a few hours over the weekend.



Sincerely,



Sean

My guess is this should go over quite well! Huge exposure to some very enthusiastic "hobbyists" with a passion for flight. Looking forward to reports.
Curt Lewis -95

On Thursday,

My guess is this should go over quite well! Huge exposure to some very enthusiastic "hobbyists" with a passion for flight. Looking forward to reports.

Curt Lewis -95

Sadly Curt, the age profile in RC flying - inside RC Clubs - is not so different from that of Soaring clubs. Having attended quite a few of the very good Toledo shows, the audience there is of the 60+ male population.
We had a very active RC Soaring group here in Chicagoland make a great presentation at one of our Winter meetings. They talked at length about their fascinating x-country and other contest flying, these were guys in the 30-40 age group. I offered a free flight to each of them at the Chicago Glider Club as a thank you, none of them ever showed up.

I'll continue displaying my LS8 at my RC club's annual Scale show where it gets great attention but recruiting new members is not really a direct consequence.
Herb

Our experience in central Indiana is similar to Herb's.

Following a 3 day exhibit at an event at the AMA headquarters a couple of years ago, we ended up with 4 people coming to Alexandria to fly a glider.

A FAST flight was given away in a drawing and the winner did not come to the airport for his free flight.

In reverse, it seems that many full scale glider pilots break out their RC models after a day of flying or on no fly days at contests.

What can be done to get the RC folks coming to the gliderports?

We have had similar experiences with full scale airplane pilots at airshows. There seems to be a lot of interest in the glider on display, but little or no traffic is generated to the gliderport for a follow up flight.

Hang glider and paraglider pilots are more likely to cross to the dark side: sailplanes. Sooner or later there's a realisation that the landing gear needs replacement. They already know most of what it takes to keep a glider airborne.
One paraglider pilot I took up, after following my control inputs, discovered it's easier to look at the top of the panel and horizon than the ASI... And he'd never flown with either an ASI or any part of the aircraft in front of him before.
Perhaps motorcyclists represent a better audience than R/C pilots.
Jim

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 6:51:58 PM UTC-6, wrote:
Our experience in central Indiana is similar to Herb's.



Following a 3 day exhibit at an event at the AMA headquarters a couple of years ago, we ended up with 4 people coming to Alexandria to fly a glider.



A FAST flight was given away in a drawing and the winner did not come to the airport for his free flight.



In reverse, it seems that many full scale glider pilots break out their RC models after a day of flying or on no fly days at contests.



What can be done to get the RC folks coming to the gliderports?



We have had similar experiences with full scale airplane pilots at airshows. There seems to be a lot of interest in the glider on display, but little or no traffic is generated to the gliderport for a follow up flight.

Welcome to the consumer century. Many of the people I talk to about soaring say in one way or another, "I can't learn do that." Since there's money to be made convincing people they can't do anything on their own, "doing something" has come to mean writing a check to pay someone else to do it. Consequently, many people regard taking the controls of an aircraft and flying it themselves akin to DIY brain surgery. "Flying" has come to mean buying a ticket.

But, don't give up. There's probably only about .1% -.01% of the population with the "glider gene" so, on average, one would have to talk to 10,000 people to find one. On the bright side, that means there's 30,000 - 300,000 people out there who don't yet know they have it.

Perhaps the RC folks believe it is as common to crash a glider as it is to crash an RC glider...

Ramy

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 6:51:58 PM UTC-6, wrote:
Our experience in central Indiana is similar to Herb's.



Following a 3 day exhibit at an event at the AMA headquarters a couple of years ago, we ended up with 4 people coming to Alexandria to fly a glider.



A FAST flight was given away in a drawing and the winner did not come to the airport for his free flight.



In reverse, it seems that many full scale glider pilots break out their RC models after a day of flying or on no fly days at contests.



What can be done to get the RC folks coming to the gliderports?



We have had similar experiences with full scale airplane pilots at airshows. There seems to be a lot of interest in the glider on display, but little or no traffic is generated to the gliderport for a follow up flight.

Perhaps it's the approach and follow-up. The R12/CA groups offered up to 17 rides to those 135 signing up for the glider flight drawing at AMA Expo in Ontario, CA. Only 77 confirmed their interest in the follow-up e-mail, so the drawing was scaled back to 9 flights. About five sought rides apart from the drawing. One club got 10-12 new members and a few were ready to join at the Expo. The Condor experience was very popular with youth. I've been advised that Southern California Soaring Academy soloed 26 students last year and has a third K-21 on order as a result of the demand.

In past years, Orange County Soaring Association did the flight drawing and collected e-mails. Larry Tuohino would then blast these e-mails with the offer of the glider pilot ground school on six Saturdays for a nominal fee, $25 or $50. Then they would ask if the ground school people would like to take a flight. Each e-mail blast would bring in 4-6 people from the list of collected e-mails. Your demonstrated interest and enthusiasm may just be contagious to others.

A few years back, the Cleveland Soaring Society had to move due to loss of their private strip. In moving, they lost enough marginal members that they were in danger of not having enough funds for annuals and insurance. Starting with 17, the waved the soaring flag, committed to being friendly and engaging to potential members and used the SSA Introductory Membership (3-month, one-time good deal, available with or without the FAST package) and a local intro membership in their chapter to attract potential members. All but two that took this intro membership opportunity transitioned into full members and they ended with season with 35. At the end of the following season, they had grown to 45, which is about the average size of an SSA chapter. They too have been through the challenges of a training accident and loss of their L-13's, but currently have 37 members at the start of the season. I hope they will have information and representation in Toledo also and that those in the booth will collect and distribute contact information on those indicating interest to chapters and commercial operations that can follow-up.

Frank Whiteley

Obviously, I personally think there is some real potential in the SSA being part of this event.

1) The expense to the SSA is very, very low. The SSA members in the booth are volunteering their time and travel costs. So basically this is nearly free to the SSA. If this turns out to be fruitless for the SSA from an awareness and selling FAST packages perspective, it was not a major expense to experiment with the idea.

2) The audience of this show is absolutely huge. A couple hundred thousand attendees are expected! In addition, the average attendee of this event is planning on spending some real money. $150 for an SSA FAST program voucher is a drop in the bucket compared to the money these attendee's are spending on other RC products and equipment at the show. These folks are at the show ready to buy new products. It is possible that they will be willing reprioritize some of their RC budget, in this environment, if we do a good job of helping them get excited about learning to fly real gliders and educate then on the numerous clubs and commercial operations in the region.

We will see in a week or so how this went. Lane (Sun and Fun) is trying to sell 100 fast passes I believe. We are going to try and sell as many as we can, and maybe 50 would be a good goal. Who know's, maybe we can do more than 50.

For me its a great excuse to be at the show and have alot of fun talking about flying.

Sean

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:42:52 PM UTC-4, gotovkotzepkoi wrote:
This is a very good idea. The more exposure the better. I had no idea

that RC age group was so high. But then again the last time I checked

this hobby costs a lot of money and often ends in smashed

airplanes....so one needs a healthy reserve of cash. That might explain

part of it.



What I see for the future, however, does not bode very well for a

possible transition from RC to real soaring. Take FPV and products like

Oculus Rift for instance. The more virtual soaring simulates the 3D

experience of real flying the easier and cheaper it will become for fat

little kids to sit in their basements on beautiful sunny days with the

shades drawn in front of their humming computers and play while they

chug coke and eat potato chips. That's happening already. If Condor ever

upgrades such that the sceneries and other graphics are more realistic

then virtual soaring will take off too and make real soaring seem

quaint, expensive and dangerous to many.



Look what happened to the sport of rock climbing for instance. There was

a time when people climbed on real rocks outside someplace. Now, indoor

climbing at rock gyms has all but supplanted the real thing. Why? It's

safe, you don't get dirty, you don't have to hike to the base of rocks,

you don't have to deal with rockfall, spiders, the observers one needs

for the show off factor are right there, and...the list goes on and on.

Some of these gym climbers never climb on real rocks. Never.



But all this does not deter from your basic message. Keep up these good

initiatives and surely a few people will become interested in soaring.





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gotovkotzepkoi

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:24:49 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
Perhaps the RC folks believe it is as common to crash a glider as it is to crash an RC glider...
Ramy

It's a combination of that and cost. They feel there is a certain risk and that flying RC airplanes, gliders, helis and perhaps FPV fulfills their aviation needs safely and at much less cost.