I read the last few posts to this thread and decided to do a quick
survey of some of the people in my extended work group (Info Tech) just
to understand what they knew/thought about soaring.

I talked to about ten people, none were pilots, one had taken a small
airplane flight or two ... about half were involved in moderate risk
sports like motorcycling, scuba diving, kayaking and skiing.

After discussing their current hobbies, I asked all if they had ever
heard of soaring/gliding. Half immediately thought I meant hang
gliders ... and the group as a whole had little to no knowledge of
gliders/sailplanes or capabilities ... although one person knew gliders
were aero towed. Three said they had no interest in aviation of any
type in small aircraft. Most was not sure about seeing magazine or
movie coverage of glider/sailplane operations.

The surprise was a middle-aged female motorcycle driver/skier who had
been interested in gliders, and thought the 'plane' gliders looked cool
and probably would have tried it, but thought you had to go out west to
fly over the mountains as that was the 'background' in the few soaring
photos or movie segments she had seen. I asked her how many times she
remembers seeing soaring photos or TV/movie segments ... she thought
about it and said not many ... could remember three, but it could have
been as many as six in her lifetime ... although, she does seem to
remember quite a few hang gliding sequences/photos on TV in movies or
magazines. She also had limited knowledge of glider ops.

OK, a quick survey like this doesn't mean much ... although I probably
had a typical mix of people ... 30% have to be dragged into aircraft;
10% were interested, but uninvolved; and the remaining 60% had
virtually no knowledge of soaring/gliding. The latter is not new news.
I think we all know people don't know about soaring because it is just
not part of the main stream in America. We have had a number of big and
small screen series using scuba diving, skiing, motorcycling, sky
diving, etc. backdrops ... and some of these also get frequent sport
coverage ... it's rare to see soaring included as even a minor theme in
any media. The new ad campaigns being discussed/developed ... and the
individual efforts undertaken by clubs and other business operations
.... seem to be our best soaring info outlets at this time. What we
need is big exposure ... maybe a weekly series like "Desparate Soaring
Wives" ... or have one of Trump's Apprentices project manage a soaring
contest ... "Charlie, you're fired !!!"

Ken Kochanski (KK)