Bruno recruits dozens

It's a rainy day here and so I sort of drifted into watching a few of Bruno Vassel's awesome "Scenery tours of Utah" videos on YouTube. I bet most people have no idea that the mountains seperating the dusty, brown valleys of Utah are so green and intersting on top! Then I started reading the comments by others, many of whom are not glider pilots.
These videos are inspiring many people to try soaring!! Here are just a few of the many comments I read:

"Bruno, I just found your videos today and you have wrecked my entire work day. I am going to the Prescott Soaring Society this Saturday to sign up. I'm doing this!" (3 weeks ago)

"Never been in a plane before, but one of the things i really want to do is get a gliders licence and join my local club, though it is 2 hours away." (15 hours ago)

"Your vertical speed indicator makes a sound? That's hilarious! An inexpensive alternative to a heads up display." (4 months ago)

"i want one!! what kind of licenses and requirement are there to fly glider air craft ???"

Bruno is very helpful and patiently answers many of the questions, but there are hundreds. Maybe a link to the SSA website could be inserted into the initial comments to make it easier for people to find out where to train.

On Monday, October 10, 2016 at 10:00:43 AM UTC+13, Soartech wrote:
It's a rainy day here and so I sort of drifted into watching a few of Bruno Vassel's awesome "Scenery tours of Utah" videos on YouTube. I bet most people have no idea that the mountains seperating the dusty, brown valleys of Utah are so green and intersting on top! Then I started reading the comments by others, many of whom are not glider pilots.
These videos are inspiring many people to try soaring!! Here are just a few of the many comments I read:

"Bruno, I just found your videos today and you have wrecked my entire work day. I am going to the Prescott Soaring Society this Saturday to sign up. I'm doing this!" (3 weeks ago)

"Never been in a plane before, but one of the things i really want to do is get a gliders licence and join my local club, though it is 2 hours away." (15 hours ago)

"Your vertical speed indicator makes a sound? That's hilarious! An inexpensive alternative to a heads up display." (4 months ago)

"i want one!! what kind of licenses and requirement are there to fly glider air craft ???"

Bruno is very helpful and patiently answers many of the questions, but there are hundreds. Maybe a link to the SSA website could be inserted into the initial comments to make it easier for people to find out where to train.

Bruce and Matt (Balleka) are doing a great service to gliding.

Matt's latest is (unusually) full of hard sell inspirational quotes and sweeping drone shots:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T0ss2Z2oJk

You make it sound like Bruno's some sort of ambassador for drawing in new soaring enthusiasts. Maybe so, witness the hundreds of comments from the uninitiated, but so what; consider the down side. Up to 5 hour videos of fantastic scenery and talking up the sport; and then chiding us for watching the whole thing (me, more than once). How many untold marriages has he wrecked or jobs fired from because of these inconsiderate distractions? My own son wants me to start paying for flight lessons now. I say we start a crowd-source effort to pay him to desist! I'll be an example by sending him a check for $100 to launch the effort....who will join me? .......(or he can use it to pay for a second GoPro, perhaps)?

Michael

I'd nominate Bruno for a "soaring Ambassador of the year" award,
The total views of his awesome videos must be in the tens of thousands!!

I joined a soaring club and started flying gliders in part because of Bruno's videos. Before seeing them on YouTube I really had no idea what was possible.

On Monday, October 10, 2016 at 3:03:37 PM UTC+13, Scott Williams wrote:
I'd nominate Bruno for a "soaring Ambassador of the year" award,
The total views of his awesome videos must be in the tens of thousands!!

Tens of thousands? Hell, even *I've* got just one soaring video with over 64 thousand views!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDZN21xzsRo

Bruno has a video with 391,000 views, three more with a quarter million or so, another nine with over 100k. At a guess he's got probably 3-5 million views total.

Balleka has a couple of million views also, but nine of his twenty most popular videos are 747 not soaring

Great idea Soartech! A link to SSA's "Where to Fly" page would be great. I also think the SSA office should be prepared to field calls as well and every new member should be greeted by someone on behalf of the SSA. Frank Whiteley told me someone used to do this. I wonder if we could find some personable, outgoing individuals to step up and help the SSA with this.

-Chris Schrader, Brighton, MI (Region 6)

Posting on this site as I get the impression more of you have these on your
side of 'the pond'

Have any of you incorported any form of moiture trap in your plumbing?
Today I was flying in cloud and lost my ASI after climbing around 1000
metres, presumably through water getting into the tubes. The thought that
the water might also get into the sensor unit onto the electronics and
cause the horizon to fail caused me some concern which I'd rather not
repeat!

Hi Mike,
To get some good feedback on your question, I think you'd have better luck starting a new topic rather than using this thread which is off your topic. Hope you get the issue resolved, there are many in this group that use Butterfly.

Michael

Bruno, you are one of the few people that make soaring fun. Keep it up. If you inspire more people, maybe soaring has a chance of being as popular in the USA as it is in other countries such as Europe.

Bruno for SSA President.

Sean Fidler for Racing Chairman.

Folks, we need common sense, or it's just going to be more of the same poor attendance numbers year after year.