Bad publicity

No one reports because no one cares, save when one of us dies in the
act, proving once again there's nothing "safe as houses."

There are so many diversions available... who is the world snowmobile
champion? Scrabble? Water skiing? Rock climbing? Surfing? Curling?
Squash? Mountain biking? And a hundred other other equally challenging
passtimes with more participants, greater accessibility, and lower
barriers to entry.

We have an unrealistic view of our sport because we have so much
invested in its returns. We find the formula agreeable. Most people do
not. Enjoy the sport for the personal satisfaction you find in it.
Answer the questions of the curious with honest enthusiasm. Welcome
and support those who have recognized the commitment required and have
chosen to pursue the sport anyway (this is where we lose the majority
of potential soaring pilots). And accept it is a passtime to be shared
among a lucky few.

And if you think it is important to be featured on the news in a
positive light, all it takes is money to feed a PR machine. I'm sure
Steve Fosset can recommend a capable firm. Make sure you have 7
figures available. Free advertising is expensive.

Cheers,

OC

Chris OCallaghan writes
We have an unrealistic view of our sport because we have so much
invested in its returns. We find the formula agreeable. Most people do
not.

Perhaps. Or is it that from the outside our small community seems so
exclusive and inaccessible to somebody with no prior aviation background
or connections?

As a complete outsider that had finally decided to take the plunge, just
walking onto an airfield involved a considerable degree of uncertainty
and required a tremendous amount of resolve to follow through. It's an
utterly alien environment to somebody whose only other aviation exposure
has been as an occasional punter on a commercial airliner.

Had my wife not been fool enough to have brought a trial lesson voucher
as a Christmas present, odds are I'd have never have done it for myself.
If nothing else, what I *perceived* as being the costs involved with
gliding were utterly prohibitive in my mind. But completely out of scale
with what I've actually found now that I've done it. I should have done
this 15 years ago. I wanted to, and now find that I could have done,
easily... Not that I'm bitter, mind you. I'm more than enjoying myself
making up for lost time.

So I'd argue that the publicity issues we have with our "sport" are
rooted in the *apparent* inaccessibility of what we do. It's very easy
to take for granted something you do every weekend. The thought that I
could wake up on a Saturday morning and by lunchtime find myself
wire-launched to 1700' was staggering to me when I first joined my club.
It is still.

And friends and family go one of two ways when I incessantly rail on
about my day at the airfield. Some of them switch off. Glaze-eyed
incomprehension. It just doesn't catch them. But some don't. They're
utterly fascinated. And intrigued that there is so much to it, and that
it is so, well, possible.

And if you think it is important to be featured on the news in a
positive light, all it takes is money to feed a PR machine. I'm sure
Steve Fosset can recommend a capable firm. Make sure you have 7 figures
available. Free advertising is expensive.

Absolutely. And certainly on a national scale.

On the other hand, awareness begins locally. And for something like
gliding, I'd be tempted to argue that the biggest payback is from local
and regional publicity, because that's where your new members come from.
And most local rags will happily print something of local interest if
its given to them as a done deal. But how many times has your club been
mentioned in the local paper in the last year?

Having said that, the above isn't necessarily intended as criticism,
merely observation. My point of view is as somebody very new to this
whole thing, it only being a little over six months since I first set
foot in a glider, and less than four since I seriously started to fly.

So my view is very, very ab inito and thus quite possibly ill-informed.

It also strikes me that the odds are that this matter has already been
discussed countless times, and were the matter as simple to address as I
might appear to be suggesting, it would, as an issue, have already been
done and dusted

But then apathy in such things rules supreme. Which is something
certainly not peculiar to the gliding world.


-Bill

Well Martin, you and I both know that whenever you land out in the UK there
will shortly be police car and a crowd of gawpers asking where the 'crash'
is!

A member of a club about 100 miles north of me (Northeast U.S.)had a
"firm" off field landing - no damage. He had a bad back and after he got
out of the glider he laid down on the ground to stretch it out a little.
The next thing he knew, there was a fireman on top of him, pounding on
his chest trying to "restart" his heart. While protesting vigorously,
the police arrived and decided that the fireman needed help. The pilot
found the incident a bit amusing..... some months after the event.

Tony V.

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 13:53:36 +0000, Bill Gribble
wrote:

As a complete outsider that had finally decided to take the plunge, just
walking onto an airfield involved a considerable degree of uncertainty
and required a tremendous amount of resolve to follow through. It's an
utterly alien environment to somebody whose only other aviation exposure
has been as an occasional punter on a commercial airliner.

That's interesting, and a point I hadn't considered. I think it never
occurred to me because I've been walking onto airfields for years to
fly Free Flight models.

Had my wife not been fool enough to have brought a trial lesson voucher
as a Christmas present, odds are I'd have never have done it for myself.
If nothing else, what I *perceived* as being the costs involved with
gliding were utterly prohibitive in my mind.

I think the costs are commonly overestimated by outsiders. By that I
include both the capital costs and the (very odd) cost structure of
running a glider based at a wire launch site.

However, this is a decidedly UK-centric view because here the costs of
gliding are a *lot* less than power flying, under £30 an hour to rent
a club glider vs. the £90+ I've been told that power flying costs and,
of course with free instruction within a club. By contrast,
discussions I've had in America seem to show that the usual way of
learning, at an FBO, can amount to 80% of the cost of learning power
flying.

Comments, anybody?

On the other hand, awareness begins locally. And for something like
gliding, I'd be tempted to argue that the biggest payback is from local
and regional publicity, because that's where your new members come from.
And most local rags will happily print something of local interest if
its given to them as a done deal. But how many times has your club been
mentioned in the local paper in the last year?

We've certainly found that to be the case. Local papers are happy to
run stories and so, interestingly, are the local TV stations.

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

Bill,

We're on the same wavelength.

Think locally... act locally. Next time you see a someone unfamiliar
standing alone surveying the grid, introduce yourself. Answer his
questions. Promise him a ride that same evening. You'll do more for
the sport than any local or national media outlet.

More pilots try and drop the sport than stick with it. I'd guess,
anecdotally, it's 3 to 1. If we could retain 10 percent of those who
left, we'd increase our numbers by almost 1/3. It would take tens of
millions of dollars to get the same results from a marketing campaign.
We are already attracting interest. Trick is to keep more pilots
engaged for longer.

I don't particularly care if the sport grows or not. But it's impolite
not to talk to someone who shows interest. So by default, I guess I'm
pro growth.

Bill Gribble wrote:

Had my wife not been fool enough to have brought a trial lesson voucher
as a Christmas present, odds are I'd have never have done it for myself.
If nothing else, what I *perceived* as being the costs involved with
gliding were utterly prohibitive in my mind. But completely out of scale
with what I've actually found now that I've done it.
-Bill

I find that when people inquire about being a pilot and the cost,
instructors and other pilots invariably start talking about a license
and how much it costs (these are the same people who always talk
about the 100th time they almost died flying to newbies).
The staggering sums of $3000 to $8000 are mentioned (glider or power).
If somebody had told ME that, I'd have never taken up flying at all...

Instead I tell them "most people I teach will be flying alone, in an
aircraft, for about a $1000 to $2000, in about ten to twenty lessons."
If you have two weeks straight and come to the airport almost every
day, that'll usually do it, or you can stretch it out, and fly 2-3 days
a week for a coupla months...

I get a lot more students this way...

The important publicity is in gliding clubs own hands,
local coverage is fairly easy to come by, have an open
day, a charity event, an air show or just a feature
on club achievements. This will get plenty of interested
potential members to try gliding, assuming you have
a reasonable population nearby it really is that easy.
So why are numbers falling, because many clubs are
so badly organised, new recruits and ab-initios are
EXPECTED to hang around all day and maybe get a 5 min
circuit at 4pm.
In the past people had the time to do that, but today
most do not, they value their time and want to feel
that it is worthwhile. Pressure from work , family,
partners and other sports terminates a great many flying
careers, clubs must recognise this ( assuming they
really want more members and by no means all do!! ).
Notably, a few clubs have recognised this and are thriving,
most have yet to change.
Gliding need not be expensive, it will cost about £
700 in flyingtime plus membership say £200 thats £900
for your first year and you should be solo by then,
after that it's up to you. There are plenty of sports
more expensive, boats, horses, motorcycles, golf and
many others.
Having my own glider I spend £2000 each year which
is just about what it would cost to keep a horse, it
is a comparison that I use to put the cost in perspective
to outsiders. Everyone knows someone who has a horse
even if they cannot afford one themselves. The majority
of horse owners that I know are women, so they really
do have time and money to follow their sport and are
not tied to the sink exclusively. Regretably though
most of them choose other ways to spend their spare
cash.


David Smith

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Smith"
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.soaring
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 7:37 PM
Subject: Bad Publicity

snipped

So why are numbers falling, because many clubs are
so badly organised, new recruits and ab-initios are
EXPECTED to hang around all day and maybe get a 5 min
circuit at 4pm.

This is because launching facilities are usually pretty limited at most
Clubs.
Even when I instructed at the London Club which was staffed by professionals
(as
well as us amateurs) the launch rate was pretty pathetic.

Some of this problem was down to inadequate provision of winches and tugs
but a
lot of it was just inefficiency and cost cutting (using cheap winch cable
which
broke a lot). Even aerotowing was not best quality due to underpowered tugs
and
an unwillingness to teach and use multiple towing.

Pressure from work , family,
partners and other sports terminates a great many flying
careers, clubs must recognise this ( assuming they
really want more members and by no means all do!! ).

It eventually terminated mine! I was finding time in air /time on ground a
very
poor ratio and I was an instructor! I had other hobbies which provided a
better
ratio of enjoyment to ennui, and I gave up gliding with about 700hrs and a
Silver C. I could see no chance of Gold without buying into a syndicate, as
club aircraft were just not available for me to attempt the necessary tasks.
While I enjoyed instructing (most of the time when I had pupils who were not
trying to kill me) it wasn't enough to keep my enthusiasm going. No one at
the
club seemed bothered about my departure either.

Having my own glider I spend £2000 each year which
is just about what it would cost to keep a horse, it
is a comparison that I use to put the cost in perspective
to outsiders.

Yes, but you overlook the investment in time that you put in to get to the
stage
where you were allowed to fly a high performance machine. I bet that cost a
bob
or two, and a lot of potential pilots just can't see that day coming and
give
up.

Alistair Wright
long retired glider pilot

G'Day,

the same in Germany - no news in TV or Radio or newspapers
about any champions or championships. But our police is more
lazy than yours outside Germany - I had never a police-visit during
my after-the-outlanding-wait-for-the-crew. But a lot of gawpers, too -
they ask everytime "have you lost wind" (I hope the translation fits...)

I try to inform them about soaring, allow children to sit in the cockpit
etc. - everytime I left I had a lot of new "friends" (and no angry
farmers).

Cu


c1rrus wrote:

Hi Martin

Lack of publicity for soaring is a worldwide problem. Here in South
Africa we don't exactly have a surfeit of world champions. However, when
Oscar Goudrian won the worlds Open class in the first WGC to be held in
Africa (Let alone in South Africa) it did not even qualify for a clip on
national television.
Some second rate football match that involved lots of noise and stone
throwing was far better news. Pity but that appears to be the way of it.

At least they appear to be even handed about this and ignore the
occasional crash too. So - no negative or positive publicity here.

Cheers
Bruce
Gregorie wrote:

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:02:32 -0000, "Alistair Wright"
wrote:


"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
. ..

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:01:07 -0000, "David Starer"
wrote:

Well Martin, you and I both know that whenever you land out in the UK there
will shortly be police car and a crowd of gawpers asking where the 'crash'
is!


Too true!


In more than twenty C/C flights I always encountered this response.
Even when I showed people that my engine hadn't fallen off, they still often
could not comprehend the idea of flying without one. So much for our
'air-minded public I used to think.


Its worse than that. I was in a field When the only spontaneous
response to a glider sitting in a field by the road is a yell of
'******' from a passing school bus you realise just how strong the
anti-avialtion culture in the UK is. But then we already know that.


On two occasions some local worthy
actually summoned the Fire Brigade who were NOT amused to find no crash and
certainly no fire.


On one occasion (I was part of the retrieve crew) there were eight
police cars, two fire trucks and a rescue helicopter. A local rang
them. At least the rescue services blamed said local, not us. When we
arrived the villagers were muttering about blocked roads and how they
could never get a cop when they wanted one.


Gliding will never attract the Beeb because there is no money in it and you
cannot package it for TV.


Yeah, I know, but you'd think a short interview would be on when yet
another soaring (or model flying) gold medal arrives in the UK. Maybe
this happens too often for it to be classed as news?


--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :