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#21
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How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?
On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 12:21:35 PM UTC-6, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 9:39:44 AM UTC-7, wrote: Reply to all 3 posts. Sean, how much fun actually flying gliders is doesn't matter that much to the initial "sale" An interested visitor will at most get a 20 minute "sleigh ride" in a glider but spend hours on the ground at the airfield. The thing that makes the "deal" possible is the environment at the gliderport.. Unfortunately, most are fly blown armpits of creation populated by not very friendly people. Guess which one makes the biggest impression?. What to do is obvious. Yes, participation in all aspects of aviation is shrinking. Our bad press is mostly to blame. From the evening news to stand up comics, people are being frightened away from aviation. All of aviation needs to mount a PR campaign to offset this. We also need to become absolutely militant about reducing accidents. We are far too tolerant of unsafe practices. Dan, be very careful about overgeneralising. I did an informal survey in shopping malls observing about 1000 young people. My numbers say only about 10% were fiddling with cellphones. That's still a big number but it's not 100%. My impression is they do this when they are bored and have nothing else to do. We can give them something more interesting. Keep the overall numbers in mind. If 1,000 people walked onto US glider operations seeking flight training our infrastructure would be saturated. We just need to figure out how to find that 1,000 in a population of 310 million. Bill Daniels Bill and I talked about this at the Nationals a couple of years ago. There are three related challenges: intake, conversion and churn. - Intake is the number of people taking an introductory ride, or are ins some way given an initial introduction to the sport. - Conversion, is the percentage of people who transition to solo, licensed pilot, XC pilot, racing pilot. - Churn, is the number of people who get all the way through the conversion "funnel", are in the sport for a (short or long) while then drop out. The balance of these three effects determine the size of the racing pilot pool year by year. A big chunk of churn is related to demographics and aging of the baby boom, some is related to the pressures of modern life. Retaining an older pilot for a few more years only buys you a few more years, but given the current profile of the pilot community there might be some work to do. Intake is expensive, especially with a conversion rate like ours, which IIRC, is around 1% of those who are introduced to the sport actually become a licensed pilot, let alone a regular XC or racing pilot. This is partly a time and money issue, but at the higher levels it is one of finding a mentor to bring you along. At the RC meeting last year we hosted a gathering of local XC, OLC and racing pilots. The most profound comments were around the lack of an onramp to racing, to lean the skills by flying (following, really) a better pilot to see how it's done. Team flying using the radio is allowed at the regional level. For better or worse Flarm following has reduces some of the "where'd you go?" issues associated with flying with someone. It's kind of fun to run around the course with other pilots from time to time. Bruno's hybrid events have seen a higher proportion of pilots flying at least one, but seemingly more that one, of the assigned tasks as a learning experience - and because it allows you to fly with buddies. I think there is something that each of us could do in increasing the conversion rate of new XC and racing pilots. 9B Andy, we don't disagree at all. Until and unless we solve the intake and conversion problems, churn ("retention") is moot. While it's absolutely true that getting new pilots into XC will increase retention, we have to have the new pilots. |
#22
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How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?
How about a Red Bull glider race?
Boggs |
#24
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How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?
One thing that's worked, and has been a lot of fun, is having a task set for each flying day. After the task is flown, we get together the next morning, compare the scores, watch all the flights on see you, and get some coaching from the experienced xc pilots. It's a lot of fun to "compete" against your friends. We get to fly places we might not otherwise go, and it's fun to learn from each other. At the soaring club of Houston we are fortunate that we have a cross country mentor willing to do all of the task setting, scoring, getting the projector ready etc.
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#25
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How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?
Enthusiasm
I will offer two ideas: First. Next week the UK Junior Nationals will be run at Aston Down. There are over 50 entries and a load of two seaters being flown by pundits to show those who are not yet ready for competition how it goes. This is down to a few very enthusiastic pundits who are keen to grow the sport and pass on their knowledge and enthusiasm to the next generation and to a few of the juniors themselves who have thrown their efforts into enthusing other youngsters. There is a junior web site, great junior videos, 'how to' stuff etc. See http://www.juniorgliding.co.uk Our BGA is also enthusiastic and supportive with competition subsidies and training bursaries for the young. I have never known the junior scene to be more active. Let the youngsters loose and they will do it. Second: Make cross country flying less intimidating for newbies and low handicap gliders at club level. Handicap distance tasks allow all to fly together at the same time, in the same air, in a collective spirit. We set these every weekend at Booker and they get flown in gliders from 89 to 112 handicap. One member who flies a Pegase and hasn't flown more than 100k on her own tasks for years flew nearly 300k the other week and landed with a huge smile. For newbies you can give them an extra 5 handicap points to allow them to play on a more level ground. Take a look at www.handicaptask.uk I have even made it US friendly! Sean, please have a look if you are seeking ideas. Jim |
#26
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How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?
On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 7:21:35 PM UTC+1, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 9:39:44 AM UTC-7, wrote: Reply to all 3 posts. Sean, how much fun actually flying gliders is doesn't matter that much to the initial "sale" An interested visitor will at most get a 20 minute "sleigh ride" in a glider but spend hours on the ground at the airfield. The thing that makes the "deal" possible is the environment at the gliderport.. Unfortunately, most are fly blown armpits of creation populated by not very friendly people. Guess which one makes the biggest impression?. What to do is obvious. Yes, participation in all aspects of aviation is shrinking. Our bad press is mostly to blame. From the evening news to stand up comics, people are being frightened away from aviation. All of aviation needs to mount a PR campaign to offset this. We also need to become absolutely militant about reducing accidents. We are far too tolerant of unsafe practices. Dan, be very careful about overgeneralising. I did an informal survey in shopping malls observing about 1000 young people. My numbers say only about 10% were fiddling with cellphones. That's still a big number but it's not 100%. My impression is they do this when they are bored and have nothing else to do. We can give them something more interesting. Keep the overall numbers in mind. If 1,000 people walked onto US glider operations seeking flight training our infrastructure would be saturated. We just need to figure out how to find that 1,000 in a population of 310 million. Bill Daniels Bill and I talked about this at the Nationals a couple of years ago. There are three related challenges: intake, conversion and churn. - Intake is the number of people taking an introductory ride, or are ins some way given an initial introduction to the sport. - Conversion, is the percentage of people who transition to solo, licensed pilot, XC pilot, racing pilot. - Churn, is the number of people who get all the way through the conversion "funnel", are in the sport for a (short or long) while then drop out. The balance of these three effects determine the size of the racing pilot pool year by year. A big chunk of churn is related to demographics and aging of the baby boom, some is related to the pressures of modern life. Retaining an older pilot for a few more years only buys you a few more years, but given the current profile of the pilot community there might be some work to do. Intake is expensive, especially with a conversion rate like ours, which IIRC, is around 1% of those who are introduced to the sport actually become a licensed pilot, let alone a regular XC or racing pilot. This is partly a time and money issue, but at the higher levels it is one of finding a mentor to bring you along. At the RC meeting last year we hosted a gathering of local XC, OLC and racing pilots. The most profound comments were around the lack of an onramp to racing, to lean the skills by flying (following, really) a better pilot to see how it's done. Team flying using the radio is allowed at the regional level. For better or worse Flarm following has reduces some of the "where'd you go?" issues associated with flying with someone. It's kind of fun to run around the course with other pilots from time to time. Bruno's hybrid events have seen a higher proportion of pilots flying at least one, but seemingly more that one, of the assigned tasks as a learning experience - and because it allows you to fly with buddies. I think there is something that each of us could do in increasing the conversion rate of new XC and racing pilots. 9B Improvement at all stages -- intake, conversion & churn, should be improved by participants seeing clear goals ahead that they could achieve. For the most part this is XC flying in a nice ship, but there are other goals people could set themselves. One observation is that on your side of the pond, you refer to introductory flights as "sleigh rides." I've heard that, by default, the prospective pilot doesn't even get a stick to handle! If that's true, then no wonder the conversion rate is so low! In the era of high rises and budget commercial airline travel, sitting passively in (an ageing) glider just isn't very appealing to young people. Give them a "trial flight," get them on the controls, and allow them to see themselves flying a high performance ship in the future. That seed needs to be planted right from the get-go. Once it is planted, their own enthusiasm will do the rest. |
#27
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How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?
On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 11:00:12 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Can't think of a single logical reason to have a separate "female" class. What is this? 1953? " I can't either. Soaring competition doesn't require muscle unless you're talking about rigging/derigging. As far as I know that's not scored. |
#28
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How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?
On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 7:12:25 AM UTC-5, Sarah wrote:
On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 11:00:12 AM UTC-5, wrote: Can't think of a single logical reason to have a separate "female" class. What is this? 1953? " I can't either. Soaring competition doesn't require muscle unless you're talking about rigging/derigging. As far as I know that's not scored. I should probably add I'm not the famous contest winner Sarah. Just to avoid confusion. I'm just another average glider pilot. |
#29
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How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?
On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 3:11:43 PM UTC+3, wrote:
One observation is that on your side of the pond, you refer to introductory flights as "sleigh rides." I've heard that, by default, the prospective pilot doesn't even get a stick to handle! If that's true, then no wonder the conversion rate is so low! In the era of high rises and budget commercial airline travel, sitting passively in (an ageing) glider just isn't very appealing to young people. Give them a "trial flight," get them on the controls, and allow them to see themselves flying a high performance ship in the future. Yeah, that's pretty shocking. My most popular youtube video (link below) is an intro flight I did a few years ago in the DG1000. The day was not very good (overcast and light wind), but I managed to show a little bit of soaring to at least pretty much maintain altitude, and then gave the student the controls for I guess 15 min or so and just let him play and get a feel for it. The background was that he'd pretty clearly decided he wanted to fly *something*. He'd been for a trial flight in a Cessna already on the same day, and I tried to sell him on gliders instead. It must have worked, as he went solo in the DG1000 almost exactly six months later. That was one of my first flights after getting the instructor ticket. Looking back at it now I can see all kinds of things that I hope I've improved since then! But, all the same, I've had a lot of very positive comments on the video and I hope some of the commenters have been inspired to take a flight themselves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDZN21xzsRo |
#30
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How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?
On Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 11:09:43 AM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
From another thread recently, thought it might be a good topic to paw around with everyone... For me, soaring is great fun. I've been doing it consistently for about 5 years now. I've met a bunch of amazing, great, kind people and have learned a tremendous amount about the sport (light years left to go). Thru and thru, as a group, soaring pilots, their friends and family are among the nicest, smartest most interesting people I have ever met. I am attracted to this immensely. Part of the reason I have devoted time and energy to the sport is that am truly inspired by what competition/cross country pilots are capable of doing in gliders. I am still fascinated by it and want to be a part of it. This, for me, was huge. Glider pilots are amazing pilots, PERIOD. I probably never would have truly learned of the sport (and what it really is at the highest levels), or been so attracted to it if my dad was not involved. Having a family member with a high performance glider, flying it regularly and promoting how amazing the sport could be all the time was key.. Having access to a high performance glider and a group of local friends who could mentor me and take me out on cross country flights shortly after I got my license was the key moment. Would I have got my license if the motivation was just flying around the airport? Probably not. Those experiences flying with the Ionio boys on short, mentored cross country's "set the hook" for me and eventually led to me buying a glider so that I could fly with everyone rather than leave my dad back at the airport whenever I was flying. Of course once I bought my first glider so I could fly with this gang regularly, the learning curve grew dramatically. The hook set deeper. And so on. Flying clubs are important to US soaring "health" I suppose but they also seem to lack in areas. They often don't have much to offer in terms of even moderate performance gliders. They often don't promote or in some cases even allow cross country. It seems that European clubs are more into cross country which is more challenging and more rewarding than local flight, which I think gets old after a year or so. If some inspirational figure is not actively encouraging and facilitating cross country glider flight (the whole point of the sport I think) at that key moment in a glider pilots career, I think they come to the conclusion that they have checked the box and move on. Obviously without glider clubs more focused on taking pilots into cross country levels, one has to have the financial means to do it on their own. I dont see that as a real problem as numerous 40:1 gliders are available for the same price as a small sailboat or powerboat, which almost everybody seems to have these days (jet skis, snowmobiles, etc). It's a matter of priority. Gliders I suppose are for one person (usually) where a boat (or other rec toy) is for the whole family. But Europe seems to have an entirely different dynamic with respect to soaring. More youth, larger numbers, etc. U.S. numbers have been steadily declining for 25 years. One thing I learned in business school. It's often better to adopt successful competitors methods even if at first you don't fully understand them yet. Our clubs (and the SSA) should be talking to European clubs and picking their brains for advise. I wonder how many have actually done that. Perhaps take a trip to Europe on summer and spend a few weeks with a successful club, talk to the people, etc. Oddly, my flying is at a location that actually IDs itself as IONIA NON CLUB. They don't like the politics. :-). The rules is a small thing overall but debating the rules is an important thing in terms of competition pilots. My suggestions usually would make getting into competition soaring simpler for the new pilot. I do think our rules are too complicated, but the rule makers are all GREAT PEOPLE, working hard and want nothing but the best for our sport. Sean 7T Morning Sean, I think your comments about mirroring european soaring clubs definitely has some merit. At harris hill, I think a huge thing for our club is that we have a discus CS, and a Duo Discus, as well as a number of pilots who are active in cross country as a baseline. Even if your father/grandfather is not involved in this case, you still end up with access to high performance equipment, and people to guide you along. my first cross country was with roy mcmaster in our duo. after about 5-7 cross country flights on my own, i flew a HUGE flight (for me at the time) with tim welles and he offered some pointers. i did the flying, he critiqued, and i saw that if i made the right decisions i could go fly cross country all afternoon too. also, harris hill offers two gliders to junior members free of hourly charge: the discus CS and the SGS 1-34. for those reasons, we are able to expose our junior members to flying and make it very attractive to them from a cost standpoint. so we're getting a younger crowd involved. we have four members under 25 right now who have completed silver badges, and several more who are on their way with one or two of the legs done. The majority of them aren't from soaring families. bottom line, make it affordable, and give them access to the equipment. No way could my dad have afforded normal flying lessons for me when i was a teen. harris hill offered instructional flights when i was junior 13 years ago for 3 bucks a flight. that was offset with commercial rides, and subsidized by senior member rates. as far as drawing adults to the cross country aspect, it needs to be turnkey, people need the have the ability to advance quickly if they want so that they dont get bored. a good training program is helpful. we do instruction every wednesday night during the flying months so that senior members can get focused weekly instruction. in the winter we do a condor night, where we set up a server and 6-8 members join and fly a cross country flight. we always debrief those and talk about the decision making. it gets everyone involved juiced up for spring. the formula is the same in your example as mine. there needs to be equipment available, and mentors available. one reason we see people getting into cross country at harris hill is because there are several people who go on a regular basis. it creates a cross country environment. tim welles (W3) is an ironman and flies more regularly, and and in poorer weather, than most. i think it takes a catalyst in that regard. you need people who can shepherd and motivate others. |
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