On Tuesday, 9 March 2021 at 09:24:52 UTC, wrote:
The issue of the decline of gliding has been debated to death in the UK and a few key issues have been identified, some of which have already been mentioned in this thread:

1. Ageing population within gliding caused in part by lack of recruitment of youngsters.

2. In the UK the majority (perhaps all?) of gliding operations use the member's club model. Another issue is that by and large the people who have positions on club committees are generally not the best people to enhance the club as they have little/no commercial prowess.

3. 1960's infrastructu people are no longer willing to spend an entire day on the airfield for a 20 min flight. We need to adopt self-launchers and slot booking.
(there has been some resistance to this in the UK as private owners have realised that if the gliding community move to self-launchers, the value of their glider will diminish).

Of course these issues are interlinked.

You on URASB?