How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?

Common! We have 6x the population of the UK and 10x the wealth! Divide the U.S. into NE, SE, SC, SW, Great Lakes, and Mountian West, etc. 6 regions of our highest population density. Take out the entire center of the U.S.., forget about it. Distance is simply NOT AN EXCUSE for our low or non existent (in the case of Jr soaring) participation. We need to stop making excuses for our complete and utter failure at developing a vibrant and successful youth soaring culture in the USA. We need to accept this failure and change. We need to wake up and fix it. Complacency is not going to help us improve the situation.

Bottom line. Few care!

Cross country soaring and youth participation is the foundation of any healthy soaring community. We simply HAVE NO FOUNDATION anymore! XC is "the" goal to strive towards achieving in soaring. Pattern glider flying is unsustainable and uninspiring. The U.S. has become a country of pattern glider flying.

I wonder what percentage of UK instructors are highly experienced XC pilots vs US instructors. My guess. 85% in the UK vs 15% in the USA. I wonder how many XC hours a UK instructor hour flys per year (on average) vs a U.S. Instructor? Shouldn't a glider instructor have to have a 100km cross country every 2 years at minimum to remain. Urgent as a glider instrucor? Shouldn't a student be encouraged to ask their glider instructor how many XC flights they have competed in the last 1,2,5 years and what their OLC URL is so they can see how experienced they are?

What a shame for potential U.S. Jr pilots.

Common! We have 6x the population of the UK and 10x the wealth! Divide the U.S. into NE, SE, SC, SW, Great Lakes, and Mountian West, etc. That is 6 small regions of our highest population density. Take out the entire center of the country. These 6 regions are what the USA is to the vast majority of our pilots. Each of these regions are equal in population to the UK! Coast to coast distance is simply NOT AN EXCUSE for the USA's low or non existent (in the case of Jr soaring) participation.

We need to stop making excuses for our complete and utter failure at developing a vibrant and successful youth soaring culture in the USA. We need to accept this failure and change. We need to wake up and fix it. Complacency is not going to help us improve the situation.

Bottom line. Few care!

Cross country soaring and youth participation are the foundation of any healthy soaring community. We simply HAVE NO FOUNDATION anymore! XC is "the" goal to strive towards achieving in soaring. This focus is why the UK is thriving. Pattern glider flying is unsustainable and uninspiring. Our lack of focus is why we are failing. The U.S. has become a country of pattern glider flying.

I wonder what percentage of UK instructors are highly experienced XC pilots vs US instructors. My guess. 85% in the UK vs 15% in the USA. I wonder how many XC hours a UK instructor hour flys per year (on average) vs a U.S. Instructor? Shouldn't a glider instructor have to have a 100km cross country every 2 years at minimum to remain current as a glider instrucor? Shouldn't a student be encouraged to ask their glider instructor how many XC flights they have competed in the last 1,2,5 years and what their OLC URL is so they can see how experienced they are?

What a shame for potential U.S. Jr pilots. Maybe we should hire some of the UK Jr Development Team?

Focusing on the strategies employed by Great Britain or Germany is misguided, because the proximal problems for U.S. Juniors are distal problems to European Juniors. The proximal problems for U.S. Juniors, which need to be addressed before the British/German strategies are viable, a

1. Travel. You need to shrink the continental U.S. (3 million sq. miles) by 98.3% for it to be the same size as England (50 thousand sq. miles). That presents a travel nightmare for U.S. pilots wanting to travel to contests. DS has done some epic road trips to fly in contests, but it isn't reasonable to expect other Juniors to have the means/desire to do the same.

2. Access. The fleet of gliders available for use by the U.S. Junior is shockingly small. DS and JPS both have benefactors who allow travel with race-quality gliders, but how many other Juniors have that kind of access?

Solve both of those problems, then start looking at how Germany/Britain address [all the other problems, many of which are common to both the U.S. and the Europeans].

Allowing free contest entry for Juniors was a good first step. Next steps would be to find a way to fund travel expenses and access to quality gliders.

Cheers,
-Mark Rebuck

I think that a lot of contributor's here mix up xc and contests. You can love xx, but don't mind contests (as in my case). In our club we train xc, but we don't push people towards contest participation.

Bert
Ventus cM TW

A European perspective he
1. We have the same problems. (Numbers, Retention, Youth, Over-regulation) Grass ain't greener over here.

2. Soaring has IMO a major image problem.
- Missunderstood (what we do, how we do it.)
- Missconceptions (Cost, Skills needed, Time Required)
- The Rewards are not apparent.

Due to this we attract/train the wrong people. There are people who want to become a pilot in the power plane sense. Yes, its a challenge on its own, but the major challenge while power flying is doing it right according to method X.

Basic glider training matches the above. But when it comes to fly on your own, its suddenly a different story:

Soaring requires to develop your own processes, your own instincts and there isn't a clear right / wrong. Its a different mind set.

We are more adventurers/explorers/pioneers than pilots in the classic sense..

We need to attract the people who cater to the above values, more than that of piloting an air plane.

At least here in Switzerland we have a major competitor: Paragliding. They have 30000+ Pilots, Glider pilots: 2200. And its exactly that mindset that is the difference. People go PGing because they think of adventure, close to nature etc. even though they are doing the same thing as we do, albeit on a different scale.

Other Frequent citied points:
* No dependency on infrastructure (take back pack and run off a mountain)
* No club dependency (volunteer work, politics, cost of association etc)

An EGU Paper suggested we do something similar as PADI did for the diving community.

I call B$ on the argument that people don't have enough time. I see how many hours people spend on social media, games and general assisted procrastination. In the end its all a deviation from their internal dissatisfaction with themselves. If they where offered a perspective, they would find it important enough to dedicate themselves to soaring.

For me Soaring has been a major character development driver. Its made me strive for goals previously thought unattainable, upped my self confidence, reliance and planning skills. Its also made me accustomed to "take the plunge/leap" often and willingly. Soaring fundamentally changes you.

I really think we can bank on that. It should be part of the sales-pitch at any Soaring presentation.

You see all these "Go pro" videos with millions of hits on youtube? That is people wanting to experience the same as the person shooting the video. But they don't even try because they think its unattainable to them.

Soaring need to break into new communities. I love for that the Soaring Grand Prix. Especially if its televised. I think we need a sports tv channel to adopt regular screening of this. It should be an easy sale. Its fresh, fast and its got major visual power.

Cheers,
- Folken

Folken,

Amazing post. Great insight. I agree with you.

Paragliding is cleaning "traditional soaring's" clocks in much the same way kiteboarding and multihulls are exceeding traditional sailboats and yacht clubs. They are generally younger, more agile and more free.

Sean

On Thursday, September 10, 2015 at 11:08:22 AM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Folken,

Amazing post. Great insight. I agree with you.

Paragliding is cleaning "traditional soaring's" clocks in much the same way kiteboarding and multihulls are exceeding traditional sailboats and yacht clubs. They are generally younger, more agile and more free.

Sean
I've found the PG population is older and better off then sailplane pilots assume. Maybe it is just this part of the country, lots of 50, 60 year olds, slightly less 30 year olds, 40 year olds seem to be the rarest, probably divorces taking up all their resources. No real young dude types. Guessing most PG pilots that I've met could afford a sailplane if they wanted one.. Number one factor for being a soaring pilot(of anything) is time.

There are some very good points brought up here. However I think we are overlooking a basic change in youth behavior that has occurred nearly world-wide over the last ~20 years. That is the tendency of young people to A. avoid risky activities outside the relative safety of "experiences" such as amusement park rides and other programmed events, and B. a decreased tendency to initiate an activity such as building or repairing things. I am sure all of you have witnessed both these characteristics in today's youths. The reasons for this are many and may include "helicopter parenting", child coddling and easy availability of simulated electronic experiences.
Now add to that the reduced amount of income experienced by many youth as "good" jobs get harder to obtain. Soaring is expensive. Hang gliding and paragliding are far less expensive. Hence the huge difference in numbers (see Swiss post above) of the remaining youth who still have the "adventure" gene active within them.
In short, there is little we can do to attract youth into sailplane flying in any large numbers. As someone pointed out, that is probably just as well as there are not enough resources to handle such an influx anyway. The best we can manage is to introduce youth to it and hope they return later in life when they can afford it.

Here is yet another example of why people that have the urge to soar don't need to spend lots of money to experience great XC. The distances are not as far but the view is better.
https://vimeo.com/138445187

On Wednesday, September 9, 2015 at 8:24:35 PM UTC+2, Soartech wrote:
There are some very good points brought up here. However I think we are overlooking a basic change in youth behavior that has occurred nearly world-wide over the last ~20 years. That is the tendency of young people to A. avoid risky activities outside the relative safety of "experiences" such as amusement park rides and other programmed events, and

I agree that this is there. Although I wouldn't limit to youth. We live in a risk averse society to the point where people are no longer able to judge risk, because of infrequent exposure.

However there is a difference between precieved risk and actual risk. I know no PG pilot who hasn't been to the doctor or worse due to a landing related incident.

Insurances here think the same. You need a special insurance for PGing here, not the case for soaring.

B. a decreased tendency to initiate an activity such as building or repairing things.
There is hope there. Have a look at the large Maker movement currently grabbing the states and europe. Sure its in an organized fashion. But that may be a key argument there, providing a more structured approach to gliding.

I am sure all of you have witnessed both these characteristics in today's youths. The reasons for this are many and may include "helicopter parenting", child coddling and easy availability of simulated electronic experiences.
Now add to that the reduced amount of income experienced by many youth as "good" jobs get harder to obtain. Soaring is expensive. Hang gliding and paragliding are far less expensive. Hence the huge difference in numbers (see Swiss post above) of the remaining youth who still have the "adventure" gene active within them.
In short, there is little we can do to attract youth into sailplane flying in any large numbers. As someone pointed out, that is probably just as well as there are not enough resources to handle such an influx anyway. The best we can manage is to introduce youth to it and hope they return later in life when they can afford it.

At least the way I see it PGing is more expensive than gliding.

You need to buy your own equipment. The PGschool is commercial. The calculation I saw here was (Swiss prices so brace yourself):
3500.- For instruction
4500.- For the Wing and equipment. (low end)
Thats about 8200 USD.

In addition you need to travel to the mountains every time you want to go flying.
Basel - Rigi costs you 45 CHF there and back again.

In addtion you need to replace the wing every 5-7 years. If you are serious about safety.

Compare to that Gliding:
4500.- for instruction (non commercial)
1500.- Per year for about 80h of flying. (3.5h in 22 Flights + Club Charge)

This isn't to shoot against Paraglider pilots. Its just that costs cannot be the factor why there are 10x more PG pilots than Glider Pilots.

I heard that soaring was more expensive than powered flight in the US. If that is the case we need to identify the cost driving factors and eliminate or find ways to distribute them differently.