Is a 45 year old student pilot considered 'youth'?

What are the issues that keep soaring from training and retaining 'older youth'?

There's a lot of talk about recruiting 'youth' into soaring. Does RAS/SSA put 45+ y.o. students in the youth category? Who exactly are we trying to recruit?

Today's 45+ y.o.s are the ones who will be flying steadily for the next 25 years, say until 2038. Most of today's 20 year old pilots will quit flying by 30 (if not 25) due to money and the distractions of career, mortgage, and family. Some of them will start to fly again around 2038, when I'm worn out.

The issues:

1)Older youth are slower learners, so it is hard for a middle age pilot to get enough training and progress at an acceptable pace in the current system. It took me way too many seasons to get my rating. I saw a lot of other middle age students get discouraged and give up. Combination of bad weather, shortage of CFI-Gs, haphazard training, and my slow learning. It's highly improbable that I would persist to this point.

2)This is related to #1. The slow learning of older students puts a burden on volunteer CFI-Gs. The CFI-G gets tired of teaching that slower learner, the student picks up on that subliminally and quits. It is just taking too long and that CFI-G is understandably cranky about it. Worse case, the CFIG pushes the student to take the flight test before the student is really ready (and they pass). Getting the rating does not make you a good and safe pilot.

3)The shortage of modern club gliders. Okay. So I have my rating. Now how do I get my Silver Badge? Fortunate for me, I found a club that has a PW-6 and I can do some XC tandem flights with some expert older XC pilots, and being advanced in years, they like to have a backup pilot in the cockpit. It's fun. WIN WIN. And I have a decent glider to solo. The appeal of doing XC training in a 2-33 is absolute ZERO. Too uncomfortable. No 2-place modern club gliders? Time to quit and take up sailing.

Action Items:

1)Shorten the duration of the training period for middle age students. Train smarter. Be more systematic. Based on my student experience, glider training is haphazard. The reluctance of CFI-G to exploit Condor to speed up the initial phase of training baffles me. Old dogs, new trick maybe. I guess Condor is not so much fun for the CFI-G. So let's train CFI-Gs to use Condor as a tool. You can start to train on Condor in January and students will have a leg up once the snow melts.

2)Invest in more 2-place modern gliders. Most glider pilots have capital (or they would have taken up bird watching instead). If half of them would sign $2-3000 promissory notes, we could update the training fleet tomorrow. I mean... what do you earn on your CDs? .2%? My glider club pays me 3% on the promissory note that I signed and that helps finance our new glider, AND I get to fly a nice new glider! Huge ROI. Stop flapping the jaws and step up gentlemen! Clubs did this back in the day and bought the 2-33 fleet. Inflation adjusted, it is the same money. Why are the purse strings held tighter today? New Butterfly Vario or Promissory Note? Your choice.

Bonus Step:
Start launching with a winch. That will pull in, train and retain the 'young Youth' pilots. It will probably shorten the calendar duration of everyone's training because more flights will get launched on Saturday afternoon.

Hooray - at 44 I am suddenly back in the Youth category!

Maybe I can someday get to 55 and be a respected Senior instead of a sought after Youth in this sport :-)

Spring can not come soon enough for all of us...

EY

In the US Soaring SSA years (dog years) this 44 year old pilot is about 16.

;-)!

On 02/22/2013 3:36 PM, Sean F (F2) wrote:
In the US Soaring SSA years (dog years) this 44 year old pilot is about 16.

;-)!



Sean - you give yourself way too much credit, I'd give you at most 13...

Aaaar

On Friday, February 22, 2013 2:11:49 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Hooray - at 44 I am suddenly back in the Youth category!

One of the main problems with getting older, is that it gets harder and harder to find playmates.

When I first got involved in soaring I was delighted to find that I had suddenly become "the young guy" in the group and that I had found a sporting community that I could participate in until my mind started to fail. At that point, and only at that point, I will take up golf... well maybe not. I don't look good in plaid.

As the new SSA Youth Committee Chairman i feel i can comment on this with authority.

No you are not considered Youth, even if you act like you are under 26. Sorry.

That said you are absolutely right based on most of my observations at the airport/gliderport, mid 40's is a very popular age to get into or back into aviation.

Arrrrrrrhg!

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html

http://youtu.be/yC_PR7YWQOc

"Sean F (F2)" wrote:
In the US Soaring SSA years (dog years) this 44 year old pilot is about 16.

;-)!

Sweet then as a 37year old can I apply for a Kolstad scholarship???

Pete (usually the youngest at a soaring event if Tony C isn't around)

On Friday, February 22, 2013 4:25:53 PM UTC-6, vontresc wrote:
"Sean F (F2)" wrote: In the US Soaring SSA years (dog years) this 44 year old pilot is about 16. ;-)! Sweet then as a 37year old can I apply for a Kolstad scholarship??? Pete (usually the youngest at a soaring event if Tony C isn't around)

you can apply all you want

actually reminds me of when our local then teenager John Bird submitted for his 100km Kolstad pin and the SSA office figured it was a joke since the 'other' John Bird who had been on the US team was *ahem* well over 26. A few phone calls and it was discovered that there was more than one John Bird in the SSA!

On Friday, February 22, 2013 1:15:03 PM UTC-8, Tony wrote:
As the new SSA Youth Committee Chairman i feel i can comment on this with authority.



No you are not considered Youth, even if you act like you are under 26. Sorry.



That said you are absolutely right based on most of my observations at the airport/gliderport, mid 40's is a very popular age to get into or back into aviation.

I think the main point of this thread is that instead of focusing on attracting real youth, we should focus on the middle age crowd who can actually afford soaring and have the time to pursue it. We simply can't compete against hang gliding and paragliding for the young crowd.

Ramy