On Feb 14, 8:53 am, nimbusgb wrote:
Do we have a unique situation?

No, I'm pleased to say!

My daughter, much to her dads delight, has decided to take up gliding.
Last weekend we signed her up as a member. She has also brought along
another teenage girl who will sign up this weekend. At first I thought
having two teenage girls at once in a single club might be unusual. It
turns out we actually have at least 3, possibly 4 and there may be
more coming! These are all normal members attracted to the sport
outside things like air cadets or such.

The same is true at at least one other club, Cotswold GC.
My daughter and I took up gliding a year ago. There's
another new-ish member and his daughter is also gliding with him,
so that's two 16/17yo girls.

I'd like to put in a plug for using gliding in conjunction with the
Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme "skill" section -- they
are a very good combination. The DofE is completely unrelated
to air cadets.

There was a significant learning curve before we started since
the DofE was an unknown quantity to both us and members of
the club, and the school and DofE people didn't know about gliding.
We were fortunate that the chairman (Mike Weston), CFI
(Simon Buckley) and mentor (Paul Gray) were prepared to put
in the effort required to
- sort out a set of objectives
- do a bit a bit of administrivia to show that the club was safe
and appropriately qualified
Their effort is _very_ much appreciated.

After the initial setup there was almost zero extra effort
since the DofE requirements are automatically satisfied
by the everyday activities. That's important since club
members and instructors weren't inconvenienced by the
DofE.


As a matter of interest the subject of gliding has been raised at her
school and it surprised me to hear that even in the South East of the
UK pretty much nothing is known about aviation by the youth, certainly
gliding was a complete mystery to her peers according to Jennifer.

A girl at my daughter's school also went solo last year, but
we only found out about that after the event.

My daughter has found that her schoolfriends (and people
in general) don't have any concept whatsoever about
gliding and aviation. They are astounded to find that
- you don't have to be a professional nor an adult to fly
- you can go solo before you can get in a car
- going solo is probably cheaper than learning to drive a car
- aerobatics are possible
Shame.