Morgans wrote:
"Alistair Wright" wrote

Well, in my day (the 60's and 70's) in the UK we just made passengers sign
an indemnity form absolving the club from any reponsibility for accident
or injury or loss.

snip


Not worth the paper they are written on, in the US.

Even in the 60s they weren't worth the paper they were written on in the
UK either.

The most important thing is insurance - once you've got that sorted with
your insurers, the rest is comparatively easy.

If becoming a business is a problem, as it is in the UK, then it's easy
to make the flight a non-commercial flight. You do this by calculating
the pure flying costs (launch cost + glider hire/airtime) and then
calculating the length of membership to cover the rest of the fee.

Example: ride cost = 100, annual membership = 500, pure flying costs =
65, remainder buys 35/500 of a year's membership. Round it up to a
month's membership and you're making a notional loss, and thus not
providing a commercial flight. To be certain, make the flight an
instructional flight - this makes it more interesting for the ride, and
if they don't want to touch the controls you can still explain what is
happening and why and thus provide instruction.

In practice you will never see 90% of your glider rides again. 9% will
turn up once more and pay for another flight, but decide that the
waiting around with the ordinary clube members (of whom they are now
one) is too dull to come again. 1% will be hooked like I was.

The thing to guard against is allowing the glider rides (trial lessons
in UK-speak) to rule the operation. This almost happened in the club to
which I belonged, and if long-standing members lose the chance to fly
because you are giving preference to glider rides then the club could
quite swiftly disintegrate. It's not a bad practice to restrict
introductory flights to the non-soaring part of the day, which also
makes it easier for the first-time maybe pilot to achieve some measure
of control of the aircraft without those pesky thermals pushing him or
her all over the sky.