At 12:30 31 January 2009, Jim Beckman wrote:
At 21:45 30 January 2009, Derek Copeland wrote:

Many European clubs have a ballot for the club gliders with a limit on
the
time you can local soar, although cross-countries are unlimited. If you
don't *win* a glider in the ballot, and you don't mind waiting around
for a few hours you can usually get to fly later on in the day.

But if you want to fly XC, then flying later in the day doesn't do you
any good, really.

If you "lose" the ballot on one day, does that give you some sort of
priority for the next opportunity?

No, but as I have already said, you can almost always take over a glider
once the first pilot has finished with it, and the ballot will balance
itself out over the year. I have done 200 km cross-country fights after
taking over a glider in mid afternoon.

My club will also allow you to book a certain number of the club gliders
for the day, or the week, in advance, if you want to do something bigger
or enter a competition.

The club system allows me to fly gliders that I couldn't possibly afford
to buy myself. Think of it as being a big syndicate.

Derek Copeland