On 11/28/2018 1:13 PM, wrote:
On Wednesday, November 28, 2018 at 2:19:14 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
A soaring safari would be a great format.Â* I did it a three times back
in the 90s but lately it's impossible to get anyone to commit to a week
of pure fun, landing at a different airport each day.Â* I got the
inspiration from reading about border to border flights in Soaring
Magazine a long time ago.Â* Next year's Stemme gathering will possibly be
of the format and I'll be among the first to sign up. It's a hell of a ride!

On 11/28/2018 12:00 PM, wrote:

Snip...

Wow that's interesting - can you send me how that one was organized - to my email address.

I think we need to look at all the soaring groups and see how to best get them flying.

We do pretty well getting older retired guys to fly (I am close)
but what about:
High school kids
College kids
young workers with and without families
Adults with grown kids who maybe flew when they were younger (Me)
....................

each has it's own dynamic to get them to fly - and a different dynamic to keep them flying.

Bottom line - we need more people flying - how do we get them to show up. I am pretty sure there is not one right answer - we need lots of answers and attempts.

WH

Just finished several hours of hanging outdoor Christmas ornaments (Ah,
retirement!), winter's approaching, and for some reason my philosophical gene
feels the need...

"Right you are!" regarding no single "correct answer," and needing "lotsa
answers/attempts."

Based on a sample of one (i.e. me) over 40+ years, in pilot-participation
terms SSA-sanctioned contests never were a personal draw. And not until ~2013
did I even attend one (as Joe Crew). Nonetheless, along the years I eagerly
looked forward to, and avidly read, "Soaring" mag's, major contest
writeups...and - especially earlier in my burgeoning XC "career" - actively
strove to "be as good as those contest guys," as measured by my assessment of
growing personal XC skills. Almost from before obtaining my gruberment-issued
PP(G) ticket, I was mentally hooked on XC. By the time several summers'-worth
of experience were beneath my belt, "camps" had thoroughly sucked me in.
(Different places! Nothing to do but go soaring! Woo hoo!!!)

Eventually, I learned something about my soaring self that had zero/zip/nada
to do with soaring, namely, I liked to soar one heckuva lot more than I did
driving to *where* to soar. To be clear, I *love* Road Trips, but I do NOT
love glider-towing-road-trips *when* the primary reason is for me to go
soaring. My "druther limit" pretty much became about one comfortable day's
worth of driving...say 8 hours or so.

I also eventually concluded I loved challenging myself against a day's weather
*much* more than I did the thought of letting someone else pick my course and
- by arguable extension - my time aloft. "Different strokes for different
folks," definitely applied to my way of thinking. And for two decades, each
year's Major Vacation was a week-long soaring camp; some years I was lucky
enough to enjoy multiple weeks'-worth of soaring camps.

My "primary camp" ran from ~1984-2009 (at Dalhart, TX). It began when a small
group of Dalhartians thought to put on a camp they hoped more experienced
pilots than them would attend, so they could suck out their XC knowledge
through straws stuck in their ears; the Dalhartians wanted to learn how to
actually do O&R's in their 2-33 and 1-26s, as distinct from vulgar downwind
dashes. They succeeded beyond - so I imagine - their wildest hopes, even
though they also burned themselves out in the organizational sense within 4
years. By that time a sparkplug person in "my home club" decided to make the
next year's camp a Soaring Society of Boulder-sponsored camp, camps being
things long enshrined in SSB's Bylaws. And so it remained for ~2 decades,
though with differing (and sometimes circularly-repeating) sparkplugs,
sometimes with two tugs, more commonly with one, glider participation numbers
ranging from 17 to 6, pilot skill levels from tyro to
World-Championship-participating. Many an SSB pilot made their initial
off-field landing at the camp (sometimes in 2-seaters!), most of whom haven't
yet aged out continuing to fly XC.

That particular camp eventually lapsed due to (IMO) changing demographics in
conjunction with human nature, human nature being the more powerful
contributor, IMO. In SSB's part of the world, "the mountains" exert a powerful
draw upon Joe Average Glider Pilot XC Wannabe's imagination and personal
dreams. I was no different in the immediate time-shadow of my licensing. Yet
despite having (successfully...as in never having landed out in the mountains
at anything other than an airport) learned mountain-flying XC "self-taught" -
and had a Great Time so doing! - it quite quickly became clear to me that
safely learning XC above more benign OFL territory was likely quicker, and
less mentally stressful, than doing so in the Rocky Mountains. And yet...

....over the years, the Most Difficult hurdle to reconvening the Dalhart Camp
every summer as a Club event, wasn't recruiting a tuggy/tuggies, but was
annually convincing one or more Joe XC newbies to commit to the camp "for
their own XC-good/future-development." "Everyone" of that level "just
naturally wanted" to go fly a *mountain* camp, even though their XC skills
largely grew about as slowly there as a pinon pine (i.e. slowly), as to the
lombardy-poplar-like (i.e. rapid) growth Dalhart encouraged.

I suspect all the above, in conceptual terms, is already well known to most
XC-experienced soaring pilots, so why did I bother to go on at such length?
Simply because Entirely Independent of *where* any soaring event is held, are
some (perhaps less obvious to Joe XC newbie? Or even some of the sport's more
experienced XC types, whose "often congenital" independence might help obscure
the following verities) Absolutely Critical Realities:

In no particular order...
- nothing happens without a sparkplug (ideally, several);
- More (of any sort of XC-encouraging) activity/camps is better;
- choice is good;
- all XC is good - contests (formal/informal)/camps (of any sort)/seminars/etc.
- likely the largest single hurdle is Joe Wannnabe XC-Pilot's personal
commitment to "invest in him/herself," to "just do it," by which I mean
routinely biasing their personal daily-life decisions in favor of soaring
rather than "something else" whenever such ponderations come actively to mind.

If it ain't sufficiently personally rewarding, Joe Pilot ain't gonna do it. (Duh.)

YMMV,
Bob W.

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