A good article - for another sport

[tienshanman]

I just noticed this article in the NY times:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/travel/escapes/18hang.html?hpw

When I saw this title I thought, great, an article about soaring. Finally some large scale publicity via a reputable paper. But no, the article is about hang gliding. Now, I have nothing against hang gliding. In fact after a long and tumultuous past of flying hang gliders and paragliders I finally moved over to the dark side and finished my license for sailplanes just a month ago at the age of 53. And I am desperately addicted (I wish I had started this a long time ago). Having now flown the 3 kinds of recreational soaring craft I have reflected a lot on why soaring seems to be fighting rear guard action. I saw this HG’ing article in the NYT as just another symptom of why soaring has been relegated to the most remote crannies of the public mind and why is has a tenacious future propped up largely by older white men (now in that category myself) and an uninspiring national support orgn (SSA). Hang gliding itself suffered a rapid, massive die off when paragliders appeared. I remember the glory days of hang gliding while living near the Alps in the mid 80s. HG’s everywhere, hundreds of them. One day, after about a 5 min briefing, I flew one the first paragliders that a buddy had bought and barely survived a 3 to 1 glide in terrain following mode down a ravine on a steep mountain in Austria - I thought, well this sport obviously has no future. Wrong. Now you go to pretty much any launch site in the Alps and HGs are outnumbered at least 10/1 by bag wings. So it is quite interesting that even though it is itself a sport on drip feed mode HG’ing gets its own article in the NY Times. I can’t remember every having seen an article about soaring in the NYT. One wonders why. This sport needs some serious young energy put into it……

[[email protected][_2_]]

NYT did a glider article in the last year or two(three?) On the other
hand if you are looking for new participants from stories in print
newspapers you have other problems. The average age of a NYT reader
is likely older than the average age of glider pilots.

On Sep 17, 8:22*pm, tienshanman <tienshanman.
> wrote:
> I just noticed this article in the NY times:
>
> http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/travel/escapes/18hang.html?hpw
>
> When I saw this *title I thought, great, an article about soaring.
> Finally some large scale publicity via a reputable paper. But no, the
> article is about hang gliding. Now, I have nothing against hang
> gliding. In fact after a long and tumultuous past of flying hang
> gliders and paragliders I finally moved over to the dark side and
> finished my license for sailplanes just a month ago at the age of 53.
> And I am desperately addicted (I wish I had started this a long time
> ago). Having now flown the 3 kinds of recreational soaring craft I have
> reflected a lot on why soaring seems to be fighting rear guard action. I
> saw this HG’ing article in the NYT as just another symptom of why
> soaring has been relegated to the most remote crannies of the public
> mind and why is has a tenacious future propped up largely by a bunch of
> geezers and an uninspiring national support orgn (SSA) which, by the
> way, seems of late to focus way too much on the obituary column of the
> sport. Depressing. Hang gliding itself suffered a rapid, massive die
> off when paragliders appeared. I remember the glory days of hang
> gliding while living near the Alps in the mid 80s. HG’s everywhere,
> hundreds of them. One day, after about a 5 min briefing, I flew one the
> first paragliders that a buddy had bought and barely survived a 3 to 1
> glide in terrain following mode down a ravine on a steep mountain in
> Austria - I thought, well this sport obviously has no future. Wrong.
> Now you go to pretty much any launch site in the Alps and HGs are
> outnumbered at least 10/1 by bag wings. So it is quite interesting that
> even though it is itself a sport on drip feed mode HG’ing gets its own
> article in the NY Times. I can’t remember every having seen an article
> about soaring in the NYT. One wonders why. This sport needs some
> serious young energy put into it……
>
> --
> tienshanman

[[email protected]]

On Sep 17, 8:22*pm, tienshanman <tienshanman.
> wrote:
> I just noticed this article in the NY times:
>
> http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/travel/escapes/18hang.html?hpw
>
> When I saw this *title I thought, great, an article about soaring.
> Finally some large scale publicity via a reputable paper. But no, the
> article is about hang gliding. Now, I have nothing against hang
> gliding. In fact after a long and tumultuous past of flying hang
> gliders and paragliders I finally moved over to the dark side and
> finished my license for sailplanes just a month ago at the age of 53.
> And I am desperately addicted (I wish I had started this a long time
> ago). Having now flown the 3 kinds of recreational soaring craft I have
> reflected a lot on why soaring seems to be fighting rear guard action. I
> saw this HG’ing article in the NYT as just another symptom of why
> soaring has been relegated to the most remote crannies of the public
> mind and why is has a tenacious future propped up largely by a bunch of
> geezers and an uninspiring national support orgn (SSA) which, by the
> way, seems of late to focus way too much on the obituary column of the
> sport. Depressing. Hang gliding itself suffered a rapid, massive die
> off when paragliders appeared. I remember the glory days of hang
> gliding while living near the Alps in the mid 80s. HG’s everywhere,
> hundreds of them. One day, after about a 5 min briefing, I flew one the
> first paragliders that a buddy had bought and barely survived a 3 to 1
> glide in terrain following mode down a ravine on a steep mountain in
> Austria - I thought, well this sport obviously has no future. Wrong.
> Now you go to pretty much any launch site in the Alps and HGs are
> outnumbered at least 10/1 by bag wings. So it is quite interesting that
> even though it is itself a sport on drip feed mode HG’ing gets its own
> article in the NY Times. I can’t remember every having seen an article
> about soaring in the NYT. One wonders why. This sport needs some
> serious young energy put into it……
>
> --
> tienshanman

Times did a great article on soaring two years ago about this time,
featuring our operation(Valley Soaring Club- Middletown NY) which
resulted in people coming from all over the country(literally) to fly
with us. It resulted in more than 300 introductory flights for us and
about a dozen new members. We still get folks dropping in as a result
of that article. Other operations also benefited as I sent folks that
called to closer operations and the SSA where to fly site.
It was featured on the NYT website for quite some time.
Guess you didn't see that one.
It's good to get your local reporter out for a ride. We've also had NY
network TV visit us and feature us. One of the morning networks did a
good story last year.
We get some press but could use more.
UH

[Mike Schumann]

These articles don't just appear out of thin air. Somewhere along the line,
someone got the reporter interested in the story.

All of us should be going out of our way to get as many media people exposed
to soaring as possible. This is something everyone can do. You'd be
surprised at how many people have a neighbor or a friend of a friend who is
a cameraman for the local TV station or a reporter for the local newspaper.

In particular, we should try to get the TV weather crews interested. They
are always looking for weather related stories to fill their timeslots.
Soaring is a perfect story for them.

Mike Schumann

"tienshanman" > wrote in message
...
>
> I just noticed this article in the NY times:
>
> http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/travel/escapes/18hang.html?hpw
>
> When I saw this title I thought, great, an article about soaring.
> Finally some large scale publicity via a reputable paper. But no, the
> article is about hang gliding. Now, I have nothing against hang
> gliding. In fact after a long and tumultuous past of flying hang
> gliders and paragliders I finally moved over to the dark side and
> finished my license for sailplanes just a month ago at the age of 53.
> And I am desperately addicted (I wish I had started this a long time
> ago). Having now flown the 3 kinds of recreational soaring craft I have
> reflected a lot on why soaring seems to be fighting rear guard action. I
> saw this HG'ing article in the NYT as just another symptom of why
> soaring has been relegated to the most remote crannies of the public
> mind and why is has a tenacious future propped up largely by a bunch of
> geezers and an uninspiring national support orgn (SSA) which, by the
> way, seems of late to focus way too much on the obituary column of the
> sport. Depressing. Hang gliding itself suffered a rapid, massive die
> off when paragliders appeared. I remember the glory days of hang
> gliding while living near the Alps in the mid 80s. HG's everywhere,
> hundreds of them. One day, after about a 5 min briefing, I flew one the
> first paragliders that a buddy had bought and barely survived a 3 to 1
> glide in terrain following mode down a ravine on a steep mountain in
> Austria - I thought, well this sport obviously has no future. Wrong.
> Now you go to pretty much any launch site in the Alps and HGs are
> outnumbered at least 10/1 by bag wings. So it is quite interesting that
> even though it is itself a sport on drip feed mode HG'ing gets its own
> article in the NY Times. I can't remember every having seen an article
> about soaring in the NYT. One wonders why. This sport needs some
> serious young energy put into it..
>
>
>
>
> --
> tienshanman