On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 12:12:55 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Hmmmmm. Last I checked, I did not see a large crowd of US female pilots who compete with the men. SKA is a fairly unique person! We need dozens more!

The reason why women are not competing in US contests is an interesting discussion point (new thread?). It is not a physical thing of course. In fact women have a physical advantage (in addition to their mental/emotional strengths!). It's also not a financial thing. So, what is it? I believe that both Europe and Australia have far more women competing in contests.

Personally, I would think that if: A) women's soaring was to grow in the US someday and B) 5-10 women were attending a future US contest...many of those women would appreciate a separate women's classification in the same way juniors would. Maybe I am wrong but I would definitely want to hear from "other women" as well when/if they hopefully materialize some day.

Remember, I am proposing an overall scoring for everyone (as normal) but individual clasifications (per suggestions) for beginner, various SSA ranking levels and of course feminine.

IOW, if we magically had 3 women at a contest in 2016, they should get a gold, silver and bronze medal no matter what their overall scores happen to be! They should be celebrated along with Jr's and beginners! Building numbers these competition categories (beginners, juniors and women) at our future events Is FAR MORE important to the US Soaring community than overall winners.

We simply have to do something significant to stem this tide of shrinking or stale numbers. It costs nothing to try these ideas. If it fails, so what? Let's not continue to sit on our hands in almost every aspect of our organization. We need some big ideas and some serious innovation. The sport of soaring is incredible...we need to market it and compete. Simple as that.

Just my opinion of course!

Sean
7T

You can't even stay on your own topic :-).

I'm much more interested in promoting XC. Competition is just one little piece of the whole.

People are just lazy. That's my opinion. My evidence includes the fact that one can join my own club (including one time initiation) for about 1/2 what most of us pay to insure *old* gliders and (when qualified) get the keys to an HpH 304c. Yep, a real, live 40+:1 glass slipper, equipped for basic XC and with a serviceable trailer too. The number of people who grab this opportunity is astonishingly small. Those that do almost invariably get smitten with the sport and move whatever pieces of heaven and earth are required to procure their own high performance glider (leaving the 304 available for the next convert!).

Most people, most *pilots* just don't want to put in the work.

It simply isn't possible to provide more encouragement than we already do.

Evan Ludeman / T8