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#1
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Cheap German gliding
On Oct 6, 11:04 pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:
No member in my club pays more than 600$ per year for gliding, all costs included. Lots of young people, too. Bye Andreas I'll bite. How does you club make that work? If we paid the same, we'd cover barely a third of the cost of our rent, insurance, staff costs, maintenance, fuel etc. Dan |
#2
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Cheap German gliding
On Oct 7, 6:54 am, Dan G wrote:
On Oct 6, 11:04 pm, Andreas Maurer wrote: No member in my club pays more than 600$ per year for gliding, all costs included. Lots of young people, too. Bye Andreas I'll bite. How does you club make that work? If we paid the same, we'd cover barely a third of the cost of our rent, insurance, staff costs, maintenance, fuel etc. Dan I have visited a few German clubs about 8-9 years ago and talked to the people that run those clubs. I will list what stood out in my mind. I noted the following with one club http://www.lsgerbsloeh.de/ This club is surrounded by a relative large population base. They maximizing the use of the field. The Field is used to grow hay. All flying equipment is self insured but for Liability. The Insurance money is invested and is generating income. They own a single dual winch, plus one tow plane. When the need arises the rent additional tow planes. They stage air events twice a year and the local population is invited. This is promoted extensively. It combines an air show with active participation, complete food services it is common to have 20000 visitors. It generates around 25000 Euros net for the club. Planning is long-term. The fleet is update regularly. The club is in the forefront of generating high calibre contest pilots. Also the club holds twice a year regular flying seminars which are attended by Dutch, Belgian and Danes that bring there own gliders. Within the club cross Country flying is stressed at all times. A limited number of none pilot, mostly teenagers about 8-10, are invited to join each year. If you are under the age of 16 , the parents are involved as to what is expect of there child,in terms of time and other commitments, besides the weekend flying. The facilities are nice which includes and indoor / outdoor restaurant, in a park like setting, which is run by the club with full services on the weekend, generating funds. Since its humble beginning in 1954 the club had to move twice and has been at this place for at least 35 years. All this has been accomplished over time without outside help. The club has received on numerous occasions the title Centre of excellence award. Udo |
#3
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Cheap German gliding
On Oct 7, 9:55 am, Udo wrote:
On Oct 7, 6:54 am, Dan G wrote: On Oct 6, 11:04 pm, Andreas Maurer wrote: No member in my club pays more than 600$ per year for gliding, all costs included. Lots of young people, too. Bye Andreas I'll bite. How does you club make that work? If we paid the same, we'd cover barely a third of the cost of our rent, insurance, staff costs, maintenance, fuel etc. Dan I have visited a few German clubs about 8-9 years ago and talked to the people that run those clubs. I will list what stood out in my mind. I noted the following with one clubhttp://www.lsgerbsloeh.de/ This club is surrounded by a relative large population base. They maximizing the use of the field. The Field is used to grow hay. All flying equipment is self insured but for Liability. The Insurance money is invested and is generating income. They own a single dual winch, plus one tow plane. When the need arises the rent additional tow planes. They stage air events twice a year and the local population is invited. This is promoted extensively. It combines an air show with active participation, complete food services it is common to have 20000 visitors. It generates around 25000 Euros net for the club. Planning is long-term. The fleet is update regularly. The club is in the forefront of generating high calibre contest pilots. Also the club holds twice a year regular flying seminars which are attended by Dutch, Belgian and Danes that bring there own gliders. Within the club cross Country flying is stressed at all times. A limited number of none pilot, mostly teenagers about 8-10, are invited to join each year. If you are under the age of 16 , the parents are involved as to what is expect of there child,in terms of time and other commitments, besides the weekend flying. The facilities are nice which includes and indoor / outdoor restaurant, in a park like setting, which is run by the club with full services on the weekend, generating funds. Since its humble beginning in 1954 the club had to move twice and has been at this place for at least 35 years. All this has been accomplished over time without outside help. The club has received on numerous occasions the title Centre of excellence award. Udo We had a young Czech glider pilot here for a couple of years building power time and ratings. He's now flying regional European airlines. His club owned the airfield and leased out several buildings for commercial/industrial use which resulted in the club operating at _minimal_ charges. Frank Whiteley |
#4
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Cheap German gliding
Frank Whiteley wrote:
We had a young Czech glider pilot here for a couple of years building power time and ratings. He's now flying regional European airlines. His club owned the airfield and leased out several buildings for commercial/industrial use which resulted in the club operating at _minimal_ charges. The key factor here is how the club came to own the airfield. One common factor among the clubs I visited in the UK last year is that they owned beautiful grass WW II era airfields. When I asked how that happened, the stories were pretty much the same, the government sold to them for a relatively low price, with the concurrence of the local towns who didn't want them turned into housing developments or industry. Here in the USA, such a notion would be completely ludicrous 8^) Marc |
#5
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Cheap German gliding
On Oct 7, 1:55 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
Frank Whiteley wrote: We had a young Czech glider pilot here for a couple of years building power time and ratings. He's now flying regional European airlines. His club owned the airfield and leased out several buildings for commercial/industrial use which resulted in the club operating at _minimal_ charges. The key factor here is how the club came to own the airfield. One common factor among the clubs I visited in the UK last year is that they owned beautiful grass WW II era airfields. When I asked how that happened, the stories were pretty much the same, the government sold to them for a relatively low price, with the concurrence of the local towns who didn't want them turned into housing developments or industry. Here in the USA, such a notion would be completely ludicrous 8^) Marc I wonder if anyone from the US who was in the sport a while back (say 1950s thorugh 1970s) can explain what was different in the US. Why weren't clubs acquiring land? There are a few clubs around (PGC and M-ASA come to mind) which bought land that has now guaranteed their (financial) future. By the time I got into soaring in the early 1980s, there was already the problem that land near population centers (i.e. one hour or less drive) was already becoming prohibitively expensive. Today, for example, getting anything within about an 1:30 drive of NYC would mean an investment well into the $ millions. Just curious to get some historical perspective. Erik Mann LS8-18 (P3) |
#6
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Cheap German gliding
"Papa3" wrote in message oups.com... On Oct 7, 1:55 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote: Frank Whiteley wrote: We had a young Czech glider pilot here for a couple of years building power time and ratings. He's now flying regional European airlines. His club owned the airfield and leased out several buildings for commercial/industrial use which resulted in the club operating at _minimal_ charges. The key factor here is how the club came to own the airfield. One common factor among the clubs I visited in the UK last year is that they owned beautiful grass WW II era airfields. When I asked how that happened, the stories were pretty much the same, the government sold to them for a relatively low price, with the concurrence of the local towns who didn't want them turned into housing developments or industry. Here in the USA, such a notion would be completely ludicrous 8^) Marc I wonder if anyone from the US who was in the sport a while back (say 1950s thorugh 1970s) can explain what was different in the US. Why weren't clubs acquiring land? There are a few clubs around (PGC and M-ASA come to mind) which bought land that has now guaranteed their (financial) future. By the time I got into soaring in the early 1980s, there was already the problem that land near population centers (i.e. one hour or less drive) was already becoming prohibitively expensive. Today, for example, getting anything within about an 1:30 drive of NYC would mean an investment well into the $ millions. Just curious to get some historical perspective. Erik Mann LS8-18 (P3) There are many reasons but one is that the US is somewhat unique in having publicly funded general aviation airports, some of which host soaring operations. The question was and is, "If you can get guaranteed access to airport facilities on the taxpayer's nickel, why buy your own?" Right now, the utilization of many of these public GA airports is way down due to the high price of avgas so more may become available for soaring operations. I'm not saying that using public airports is the best idea in the long run but it does have some advantages. One of the big ones is that the club management can concentrate on gliders and tugs and not involve itself in real estate. If there is an FBO who does a good job of providing tows at a reasonable price, the club has only to manage its gliders which can be a very good thing. On the other hand, clubs with their own airfields and clubhouses seem to be more stable in the long run. As for the price of that real estate, it has always been "way too expensive" in current dollars and very cheap in historical dollars. If you buy it now, sooner or later, it will look like a cheap price. Bill Daniels |
#7
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Cheap German gliding
On Sun, 07 Oct 2007 10:54:45 -0000, Dan G wrote:
I'll bite. How does you club make that work? If we paid the same, we'd cover barely a third of the cost of our rent, insurance, staff costs, maintenance, fuel etc. - Winch launch (more than 90 percent of of our launches are done with the winch) - no paid staff at all - modest monthly fees (64 Euro per year for adolescents, 128 Euro/year for adults) .... and, what is (in my opinion), the secret: No hourly fees for glider-usage, but any active member of the club pays an all-inclusive price that covers ALL the winch launches and ALL the flying time (at the moment 259 Euro/year). The only additional costs are the costs for aerotows. A student pilots pays the same fee as any long-time member. http://djk-landau.de/sites/gebuehren.html This means that even on a day without thermals there's a lot of activity going on - and even an ASW-27 is used to fly traffic circuits all day. Good for student pilots, too, because they can be sure that there'll be flying activity as long as it's not raining cats and dogs. All gliders have a full physical damage insurance. http://djk-landau.de/sites/flugzeugpark.html Active members: About 90 at the moment (60 when I joined the club in 1986) In 2001 we were able to buy our airfield (which was previously property of the French Army and was handed to the German Government when the French left Germany after 1990) together with the second club that flies at Landau. Each club paid about 150.000 Euro. We don't use bank loans, but we use low-interest loans from our members to pay new gliders and the airfield. Bye Andreas |
#8
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Cheap German gliding
On 7 Okt., 17:55, Udo wrote:
On Oct 7, 6:54 am, Dan G wrote: On Oct 6, 11:04 pm, Andreas Maurer wrote: No member in my club pays more than 600$ per year for gliding, all costs included. Lots of young people, too. Bye Andreas I'll bite. How does you club make that work? If we paid the same, we'd cover barely a third of the cost of our rent, insurance, staff costs, maintenance, fuel etc. Dan I have visited a few German clubs about 8-9 years ago and talked to the people that run those clubs. I will list what stood out in my mind. I noted the following with one clubhttp://www.lsgerbsloeh.de/ This club is surrounded by a relative large population base. This is a great advantage but please keep in mind that there are also at least 6 other airfields with glider operations within a radius of 30km. They maximizing the use of the field. The Field is used to grow hay. The grass ist always kept low for safety reasons...no good for growing hay. All flying equipment is self insured but for Liability. The Insurance money is invested and is generating income. They own a single dual winch, plus one tow plane. When the need arises the rent additional tow planes. I have never seen a second towplane in Langenfeld. They stage air events twice a year and the local population is invited. Only once a year. This is promoted extensively. It combines an air show with active participation, complete food services it is common to have 20000 visitors. It generates around 25000 Euros net for the club. Planning is long-term. The fleet is update regularly. The club is in the forefront of generating high calibre contest pilots. Also the club holds twice a year regular flying seminars which are attended by Dutch, Belgian and Danes that bring there own gliders. As far as I know there have not been any really big seminars in the past years. Within the club cross Country flying is stressed at all times. A limited number of none pilot, mostly teenagers about 8-10, are invited to join each year. If you are under the age of 16 , the parents are involved as to what is expect of there child,in terms of time and other commitments, besides the weekend flying. The facilities are nice which includes and indoor / outdoor restaurant, in a park like setting, which is run by the club with full services on the weekend, generating funds. This is going a bit to far;-) There is no restaurant in Langenfeld and as far as I know never has been. There are other clubs which use restaurants as a source of income. Since its humble beginning in 1954 the club had to move twice and has been at this place for at least 35 years. All this has been accomplished over time without outside help. The club has received on numerous occasions the title Centre of excellence award. Udo The club in Langenfeld has its own share of problems and definatly is not as good as portrayed. As far as I know German clubs are often far cheaper than US clubs because they are struktured differently. Members are expected to do all the work themselves. Everybody has a job to to from mowing the gras, fleet maintenance or instructing. Maintenance only costs the materials used. Fuel is not a problem because a winch launch barely uses 1 lite r of diesel. Airfields are often in posession of the clubs or cheaply leased from the city. The biggest costs in our club are insurance costs. If you insure your fleet yourself then you can save even more. Flying is not really cheaper in germany. We just pay less money and more time. A normal club member will spent about 10 half days each year on the winch (or doing some other job on the field), is expected to stay and keep the operation running the whole day if he wants to participate (1hour of flying means spending the whole day at the field) and has to work 60 - 80 hours in the winter doining maintenance or other chores. Most clubs depent on a small number of people who are willing to invest even more time into the club. |
#9
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Cheap German gliding
Of all the many points I made, one point was incorrect, it was 10
years ago and done from memory. As to your contra points. In 1998 the restaurant was real I had my launch there, and my black forest cake and coffee in the afternoon and I paid for it. For a visitor it looked very nice. Normally my standards are a bit higher for a normal dining experience. As to the second tow plane. I state it is rented when needed It certainly was needed when I saw 30 glider lined up at 9:00 am, half the fleet were guest and many from other countries and it was not a contest. Hay was being made, the rolls of bails were moved over to the side near the fence. As to the air event my mistake it only takes place once a year. The annual Club booklet, that was laying about, stated the club earned 50000.00 Marks net from that event. As for the fees, as seen on the current website one time club entry fee E 520.00 every spring E130.00 monthly E 14.50 1 hour of flying all inclusive E 7.00 3 hours E 21.00 That would come to about E 1000.00 if you fly 100 hrs a year Take your pick with the gliders. I think that is a very good deal in spite of the fact you would have to spent 75 hours a year helping maintaining the club. I am impressed. On the other hand, I personally would not like the highly structured environment. I remember some one telling me at the time that club members can buy off some of that time. Udo |
#10
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Cheap German gliding
No hourly fees for glider-usage, but any active member of the club
pays an all-inclusive price that covers ALL the winch launches and ALL the flying time (at the moment 259 Euro/year). That's significantly less than any "beginner to solo" package I have ever seen. The total (fees plus the all-inclusive price) is also lower than the annual fee at many clubs. So, given that - after the fees - flying is essentially free, how do you balance supply and demand? Time limits? Long queues on good days? Bartek |
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