Consumer warning thread

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At the risk of jumping into something I'm really not in the middle of, I'd like to suggest that we are not presenting our sport in a positive light to those who are considering joining our ranks. It would be great to see an active thread on how to create buyers for gliders instead.

We face a lot of issues in growing our own club including finding a cost effective two-place glider, the perceived accident rate looking in from the outside, marketing our product, and keeping the costs under control. We have a lot of interest in our club and we've added members recently. What are clubs doing to make sure that new members stick with it? In the power community, something like 80+% of people who take a first lesson drop out before getting their license. Is that an opportunity? What are clubs doing for checkrides when there are no DPE's locally?

Scott

[Evan Ludeman[_4_]]

On Monday, April 8, 2013 8:49:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
> What are clubs doing to make sure that new members stick with it?

We're doing great with hang glider pilots with worn out shoulders :-).

T8

[Steve Koerner]

> We're doing great with hang glider pilots with worn out shoulders :-).

But some of us with worn out hang gliding shoulders are having trouble driving the flap handle after several hours of same. Don't tell them that though.

[son_of_flubber]

On Monday, April 8, 2013 8:49:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
> At the risk of jumping into something I'm really not in the middle of, I'd like to suggest that we are not presenting our sport in a positive light to those who are considering joining our ranks.<

Or to put it another way, our slip is showing

[Eric Greenwell[_4_]]

On 4/9/2013 3:57 PM, Steve Koerner wrote:
>
>> We're doing great with hang glider pilots with worn out shoulders
>> :-).
>
> But some of us with worn out hang gliding shoulders are having
> trouble driving the flap handle after several hours of same. Don't
> tell them that though.

Multiple solutions:

* Standard class!
* Put the flaps in neutral and leave them alone. Probably in the correct
position just as often.
* Fly a DuckHawk or SparrowHawk R with electrically actuated flaps.
* Land sooner - worst option yet!

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what
you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz