Sean Fidler
October 8th 14, 05:29 AM
I am interested in organizing an annual North American Contest Soaring Development Panel for winter 2016 (hopefully 2015). The event would be held in the winter months. No flying, no gliders, no glider-ports and not in conjunction with the SSA convention (this topic deserves more focus and requires MUCH more time)! The event would be based around an expert panel of top pilots (perhaps 1-3 top, TOP world level pilots) along with a group of our top North American pilots. These experts would each develop a series of presentations, lectures, discussion topics and chair various breakout sessions. Each evening would have organized social activities (dinners, etc). Imagine a 3 day seminar environment in a nice urban (Chicago, Orlando, Dallas, Phoenix, Las Vegas) or resort locale.
The event would strive to provide a highly interactive and focused agenda which promotes detailed discussion (and knowledge transfer) in all key elements of contest soaring. The principle goals would be to improve the collective skills of North American contest pilots while developing youth pilots (perhaps youth pilots attend free?). This events content should also be highly valuable to the intermediate and advanced cross country pilots.
My vision for a schedule would be to arrive Thursday evening for a welcome reception. Friday and Saturday would be full content days and Sunday would adjourn midday for goodbyes return travel. There would of course be a registation fee which would include event expenses, hotel rooms, breakfast, lunch, etc. Overall the registration fee should be reasonable. Depending on the number of attendees, potential sponsors or "other" means of funding it could be negligible. I believe that late January, early February would be ideal.
I think this kind of Annual Contest Soaring Development Event could be something special. There is so much knowledge and experience out there in our top contest pilots. That said, it is also incredibly difficult to find meaninful time to really talk to them in detail about these topics. We need a better mechanism for sharing this knowledge. Supporting and growing this annual event is how I would propose solving that problem.
I would like to gauge the interest level for this kind of event.
1) Would you be interested in attending such an event?
2) What über World level pilots would you most like to learn from?
3) Please list the areas of discussion (top 5) that would be most interesting to you.
4) Does location matter to you? What city would you prefer?
5) Other comments, idea's and thoughts?
TIA,
Sean
The event would strive to provide a highly interactive and focused agenda which promotes detailed discussion (and knowledge transfer) in all key elements of contest soaring. The principle goals would be to improve the collective skills of North American contest pilots while developing youth pilots (perhaps youth pilots attend free?). This events content should also be highly valuable to the intermediate and advanced cross country pilots.
My vision for a schedule would be to arrive Thursday evening for a welcome reception. Friday and Saturday would be full content days and Sunday would adjourn midday for goodbyes return travel. There would of course be a registation fee which would include event expenses, hotel rooms, breakfast, lunch, etc. Overall the registration fee should be reasonable. Depending on the number of attendees, potential sponsors or "other" means of funding it could be negligible. I believe that late January, early February would be ideal.
I think this kind of Annual Contest Soaring Development Event could be something special. There is so much knowledge and experience out there in our top contest pilots. That said, it is also incredibly difficult to find meaninful time to really talk to them in detail about these topics. We need a better mechanism for sharing this knowledge. Supporting and growing this annual event is how I would propose solving that problem.
I would like to gauge the interest level for this kind of event.
1) Would you be interested in attending such an event?
2) What über World level pilots would you most like to learn from?
3) Please list the areas of discussion (top 5) that would be most interesting to you.
4) Does location matter to you? What city would you prefer?
5) Other comments, idea's and thoughts?
TIA,
Sean