Not many clubs in the US do booking, but the commercial
operators do so.

I can't see the point in booking, appearing, flying,
and leaving. People sail and fly gliders (in part)
so they can talk about it. And no one but other glider
pilots understand; explaining it to non-flyers gets
to be tedious and boring.

Just two kinds of pilots talk about their flights with
others; they are glider pilots and fighter pilots.
Have you ever heard engine-driven airplane pilots
talking to each other about the details of their flights?
Doesn't happen -- it is just a tool.

Hanging out and talking is a great part of the fun;
it is a life-style and should not be confused with
just picking up ratings or badges.

But maybe some people just like to pick up another
experience for two years, drop it and move on to something
else. It comes down to deep interest or shallow diversion.
I've been at it since 1954 and haven't had enough;
I would not have had the wonderful experiences had
I just booked, flew, and left without hanging out and
developing deep friendships.

At 23:54 08 July 2007, Dudley Henriques wrote:
Dan G wrote:
On Jul 8, 6:23 pm, Peter wrote:
Rob McDonald wrote

My experience with soaring is that you are always
doing something when you
are not flying. Socializing with club members is part
of the experience,
and much more common in my experience than in power-plane
flying clubs.
The social scene seems to be a way of life. It's OK
if you want that,
not OK if you don't. But one needs to be clear that
this is the
choice. I looked into gliding and it was obvious one
would spend the
whole weekend hanging around.

I think it depends on where you're flying. I understand
that in the US
you can book lessons with instructors and turn up
a set time, fly, and
go home again.

In the UK you get instruction for free but have to
spend the whole day
on a cold field being bored for twenty minutes of
flying. In theory
you can entertain yourself by doing some other jobs
e.g. helping
launch gliders, driving winch retrieve etc. but if
you do that people
will quickly come to expect it of you, and you'll
rapidly find
yourself part of a small group which does all the
work while everyone
else shirks.

And people wonder why UK gliding is shrinking faster
than the
icecaps...

A couple of clubs have got their arses into gear and
introduced
booking systems and are indeed reaping the results
(more members
flying than they know what to do with), but those
clubs are very much
in the minority (introducing something new implies
the old system was
inadequate, and it's very hard for people to admit
that they were
inadequate).


Dan

Actually not a bad system for learning. Naturally it
all depends on your
available time and the level of your incentive, but
I'm one instructor
who believes strongly in the concept of 'hanging around
the field' as
one of the strongest learning tools in aviation.
Doing this, you soon pick up on how things are done
and why. You also
see first hand the result of things tried, done, and
not done. You learn
fairly fast just who knows what they are doign and
who doesn't.
All in all, hanging around the field can pay off in
HUGE unpaid for
dividends for those with the time to do it.
Dudley Henriques