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Old March 15th 21, 03:04 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

On Sunday, 14 March 2021 at 17:08:56 UTC, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 10:13:08 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

What an awful situation! Is that because your club owns the ground? If
you had a self-launcher you could fly out of a public field using your
own judgment. Or is it a BGA requirement to submit to such treatment?

BGA rules. I think it makes sense to show you can handle winch launch and
aero tow eventualities as well as spins at the start of the season - and
anyway its always quite a fun day's flying.

Down with George III...

Leave George 3 alone! During its prime (1968-1977) George 3 and Multics
were easily the best mainframe operating systems available.

OTOH, if you're thinking of the English monarch, the whole Boston Tea
Party kerfuffle was more properly blamed on Clive of India and the
British Parliament. In the aftermath of conquering Bengal, Clive was so
greedy in rewarding himself and his friends that he drove the East India
Company (popularly known as John Company) into bankruptcy. At this point
the British Government decided that John Company was too big to fail and,
not having the cash in hand to bail it out, decided that raising American
colonial taxes to the same level as British citizens were paying was a
good way of raising the money needed bail it out.

So, blaming King George III, who wasn't in good physical or mental health
at the time, for the American Revolution is really aiming at the wrong
targets.

BTW Clive, his son and wife were all as bad as each other at grabbing
anything that glittered and wasn't nailed down tight. The son married
into some somewhat impoverished Welsh nobility, thereby getting a title
and Powis Castle, which currently holds Clive's stash of Indian loot,
which I'm told contains more Mughal stuff than any other museum -
including those in India.

If you want to know more, William Dalrymple's "The Anarchy" is an
excellent, though quite a long read about the East India Company which,
at one stage, owned what was probably the biggest private army the world
has ever known.

Anyway, I now return you to the subject of glider flying.
--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org


Martin, thanks for the history. I think some historians would be more keen to defend Robert Clive - in an era of European colonialism, it was more his achievements - both military and organisational - than any other which resulted in India becoming a British dependency instead of French.

Back to gliding, and the UK system. Under recent rules, licensed pilots are entitled to fly here on their own responsibility. The rules Martin refers to are operated by his club - and a club can refuse to provide a launch. My club does not require annual or other checks for licensed pilots who don't fly club gliders or require winch launches.