The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

Dan Marotta wrote on 3/14/2021 3:30 PM:
Martin,
If you ever get to Moriarty, I will treat you to all the local beer that you can handle.
Thanks for the history lesson!

Dan
5J

On 3/14/21 11:08 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 10:13:08 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

What an awful situation!* Is that because your club owns the ground?* If
you had a self-launcher you could fly out of a public field using your
own judgment.* Or is it a BGA requirement to submit to such treatment?

BGA rules. I think it makes sense to show you can handle winch launch and
aero tow eventualities as well as spins at the start of the season - and
anyway its always quite a fun day's flying.

Down with George III...

Leave George 3 alone! During its prime (1968-1977) George 3 and Multics
were easily the best mainframe operating systems available.

OTOH, if you're thinking of the English monarch, the whole Boston Tea
Party kerfuffle was more properly blamed on Clive of India and the
British Parliament. In the aftermath of conquering Bengal, Clive was so
greedy in rewarding himself and his friends that he drove the East India
Company (popularly known as John Company) into bankruptcy. At this point
the British Government decided that John Company was too big to fail and,
not having the cash in hand to bail it out, decided that raising American
colonial taxes to the same level as British citizens were paying was a
good way of raising the money needed bail it out.

So, blaming King George III, who wasn't in good physical or mental health
at the time, for the American Revolution is really aiming at the wrong
targets.

BTW Clive, his son and wife were all as bad as each other at grabbing
anything that glittered and wasn't nailed down tight. The son married
into some somewhat impoverished Welsh nobility, thereby getting a title
and Powis Castle, which currently holds Clive's stash of Indian loot,
which I'm told contains more Mughal stuff than any other museum -
including those in India.

If you want to know more, William Dalrymple's "The Anarchy" is an
excellent, though quite a long read about the East India Company which,
at one stage, owned what was probably the biggest private army the world
has ever known.

Anyway, I now return you to the subject of glider flying.O

Oooh, beer in history class! I'd like to at least audit the class - don't need any graduation
credits.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1