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#51
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tango4 wrote:
The 'which glider should we make cheaply' , 'glider classes' and some of the traditional 'winter threads' seem to be based on the premise that if we could build a 40:1 sailplane for some nominal amount then the steady decline in worldwide sailplane pilot numbers can be stemmed. I am yet to be convinced that aircraft cost is the major threshold to entry into the sport of soaring. I remain firmly convinced that even if we came up with a near zero cost aircraft we would do little more than temporarily halt the decline. Absolutely. The market will work for gliding as it does with most things. Already, I know of three 25-30 year old glass gliders bought by young men from deceased estates for trivial prices (a perfectly good PIK-20B for $12000, for example). Cost isn't/won't be the problem. Real prices will go on falling as the number of available gliders grows at a faster rate than the number of buyers. In the UK annual membership of a golf club costs about the same as joining a gliding club and flying club ships for the same period. Ditto for a dinghy sailing club - based on joining a club and renting dingies. Our club runs a 'scholarship' incentive for a number of student pilots each year, basically they fly for free, their bills being carried by the rest of the membership. We don't have hundreds of applicants for the scholarships, just sufficient. Most operations have a continuous stream of intro riders, the conversion rate to sailplane pilots is astonishingly low though, in the order of a few percent. Todays youth have more disposable income than most of us could ever have dreamed of at their age and in the future they are likely to have more leisure time and even more money. Flying has to become something that youngsters 'want to do' it has to become cool. Rather than sticking with the old way of doing things perhaps we should fire every club committee member on the planet over 30 and let the youngsters with backwards baseball caps, wrap around shades and baggy pants drag soaring into the 21st century. Us old farts are not doing too good a job of stewardship if you ask me. We need a new approach. No we don't. It won't die with us. There will always be a few young men who are attracted to soaring. Many will come to it later though because its attractions are available in other sports as well these days. Meanwhile old committee members are needed to steward the assets of the clubs. What the young get for free won't be appreciated and the embarrassing sight of old farts offering metaphorical boiled lollies to teenagers is to be avoided at all costs. When they win the fight over our dead bodies they'll actually care for what they get their hands on. What will make youngsters want to be part of soaring is us grey heads refusing to let them have it. The ones it will be worth passing it on to will be those who care enough to fight us for it. And we're doing a great job at stewardship. The major threat to the existence of many clubs is property development attempting to drive us from our airfields. How useful are teenagers in fighting those battles? A committe of 20-somethings would lose at the first round and what would be left then? Give me a bunch of old men who have the patience and persistence and experience and rat-cunning to win these civic battles. Certainly the young will take over in the end - but why should I/we make our sport unpleasant for ourselves by changing all the things about it which the majority of us enjoy? I'm only here once the same as the young. Why should their preferences have priority? They can have it later and remake it any way they like. They can buy my gliders cheaply too. But not yet. Graeme Cant |
#52
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#53
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Bert Willing wrote:
And in Europe, gliding for youngster asks for a budget very much like skiing, horse riding, small motorcycles or whatever a 16 years old fancies to do (and it's those 16 years old kid who are the future of soaring, not any of those 50-years-old-catching-up-with-their-dreams folks) and gets the money for anyways. Well, I'm one of those catching-up-with-their-dreams folks and I see no reason why 16 year olds' fickle fancies are worth more to gliding than my dedication. Is my money a different colour? Do I work less hard for the club? Why shouldn't gliding be a sport for middle-aged men? We're too old to steal hubcaps. And what do you mean by "the future of soaring"? If Eur200,000 gliders are the future - and they're certainly the present - then sure as hell 16 year olds don't figure much in that future. Yes, there's room for teenagers in gliding just like there is in ocean racing, and teenagers are the future of gliding just like they're the future of ocean racing. As you said, we need a new approach - at least the ration "airborne time/time running around on the field" has to be greatly improved, and those "because-we-have-done-it-like-this-for-the-last-fifty-years" farts have to be dumped... Try it. If the teenagers don't like the effort involved, then 50year olds WILL be the future of gliding because they WILL make the effort. If teenagers don't like the way things are done, 50 year olds who DO like these ways will be the future of gliding. Why are you concerned about this nebulous "future" anyway? Enjoy your gliding NOW. Do what you want to do in gliding NOW. When you don't want to keep doing it, LEAVE. Someone else WILL take your place. It won't be a teenager. Gliding's fine (except for the IGC). Leave it alone. Graeme Cant |
#54
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Graeme Cant wrote:
Absolutely. The market will work for gliding as it does with most things. Already, I know of three 25-30 year old glass gliders bought by young men from deceased estates for trivial prices (a perfectly good PIK-20B for $12000, for example). Cost isn't/won't be the problem. Real prices will go on falling as the number of available gliders grows at a faster rate than the number of buyers. Corollary when the sport will be almost dying. -- Michel TALON |
#55
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Hmm, now I'm 30 and when I was 14-22 I spent the whole summer at the airports. Sitting in the winch, pulling the cable, handling gliders, retrieving sailplanes, working on contests etc-etc. How many people can afford it once you have to work for your family...? I do think we should attract young members but we have to optimize our activity. For example when I started the basic training we were about 35 for only one IS28B2 It was just impossible to fly for all of us. /Janos Graeme Cant wrote: Bert Willing wrote: And in Europe, gliding for youngster asks for a budget very much like skiing, horse riding, small motorcycles or whatever a 16 years old fancies to do (and it's those 16 years old kid who are the future of soaring, not any of those 50-years-old-catching-up-with-their-dreams folks) and gets the money for anyways. Well, I'm one of those catching-up-with-their-dreams folks and I see no reason why 16 year olds' fickle fancies are worth more to gliding than my dedication. Is my money a different colour? Do I work less hard for the club? Why shouldn't gliding be a sport for middle-aged men? We're too old to steal hubcaps. And what do you mean by "the future of soaring"? If Eur200,000 gliders are the future - and they're certainly the present - then sure as hell 16 year olds don't figure much in that future. Yes, there's room for teenagers in gliding just like there is in ocean racing, and teenagers are the future of gliding just like they're the future of ocean racing. As you said, we need a new approach - at least the ration "airborne time/time running around on the field" has to be greatly improved, and those "because-we-have-done-it-like-this-for-the-last-fifty-years" farts have to be dumped... Try it. If the teenagers don't like the effort involved, then 50year olds WILL be the future of gliding because they WILL make the effort. If teenagers don't like the way things are done, 50 year olds who DO like these ways will be the future of gliding. Why are you concerned about this nebulous "future" anyway? Enjoy your gliding NOW. Do what you want to do in gliding NOW. When you don't want to keep doing it, LEAVE. Someone else WILL take your place. It won't be a teenager. Gliding's fine (except for the IGC). Leave it alone. Graeme Cant |
#56
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I really don't get all this paranoia about the sport dying...We have a group
of folks coming along, who absolutely LOVE thrills. The Gen X crowd is on its way and though it might be a few years, it'll get to us when it's ready. We just have to be ready to receive them and train them and help them move along and become part of us...things will change, but that's inevitable...Why all the worry??? We need to do what we are doing...ask questions, and try to set change in motion and find ways to do a better job where and when we can. Soaring isn't going to die now or anytime soon. If clubs fail, new clubs will form. Different, but there will always be soaring in one way or another. As long as one guy jumps off a hill with a paraglider, another guy will look for a better way to go faster and farther...ultimately there will be an equillibrium attained with regards to sailplane prices and performance...it's called a free market....it never seems to disappoint. Hell...at my airport we had to kids show up with hang gliders and a homebuilt winch contraption, built from an old Roto-tiller...it didn't work...but they were thinking and trying!! I guess what is bugging me is how many people start echoing all the "end of soaring" crap...RELAX...we'll be fine...just let's be positive and work to bring new enthused young folks...old folks and middle aged folks into our fold. Soaring is a thing you either "get"...or "don't get"...the ones who "get it" will find their way into our sport. We just need to provide more stimulus in the form of what people can see, in order for it to be better recognized. When people see it and start wondering about how they can try it, then growth will occur. Since it's such a topic on here, I think we can all make the effort to simply start out by taking ONE person for a glider ride next year...hopefully a person who would have the logical possibility of being one of those folks who'd have some level of interest...Man...think of it...what would happen if next year we got say....1,000 new and additional glider pilots added to our ranks. Over and above our attrition, that would be a great start. We....are the solution. Tell your friends...find a person...seek out one individual and try to hook em!!!! Steve. |
#57
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Stewart Kissel wrote:
Hmmm, the George Orwell references are a little over my head...but perhaps I am on a parallel track and don't know it. You have read "1984", have you not? If not, then run -- do not walk -- to your local library and demand a copy. It is the prequel to the 21st Century as we are living it. Jack |
#58
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Well although it may/may not be a 'prequel' to how we are living...how this applies to soaring still has me mystified. At 19:30 06 December 2004, Jack wrote: Stewart Kissel wrote: Hmmm, the George Orwell references are a little over my head...but perhaps I am on a parallel track and don't know it. You have read '1984', have you not? If not, then run -- do not walk -- to your local library and demand a copy. It is the prequel to the 21st Century as we are living it. Jack |
#59
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Snip 1...
At 05:30 05 December 2004, Johnwn In Burke, Va wrote: There is only one factor which stops gliding being as successful as Paragliding....IMAGE. Snip 2... The image of the average UK gliding club is being full of old people in wooden gliders...the image of paragliding is young, daredevils jumping off hills. Neither image is correct...but it's perception that matters. Apologies to those in this picture who may feel slighted...my intent was to post what I perceive as a fairly accurate image of our sport...and the challenge of making this image cool. http://windpath.ca/news/images/dv_lgpix/2_F1030012.jpg |
#60
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Good point.
Now, go to this site and download some videos and see how the European youngsters see the sport there. http://www.alpenstreckenflug.de/text...dingvideos.htm There couldn't be more contrast. (The files may be too big for the bandwidth challenged.) Bill Daniels "Stewart Kissel" wrote in message ... Snip 1... At 05:30 05 December 2004, Johnwn In Burke, Va wrote: There is only one factor which stops gliding being as successful as Paragliding....IMAGE. Snip 2... The image of the average UK gliding club is being full of old people in wooden gliders...the image of paragliding is young, daredevils jumping off hills. Neither image is correct...but it's perception that matters. Apologies to those in this picture who may feel slighted...my intent was to post what I perceive as a fairly accurate image of our sport...and the challenge of making this image cool. http://windpath.ca/news/images/dv_lgpix/2_F1030012.jpg |
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