Grow soaring thru entertainment

John wrote:

Added a similar comment when I filled in the SSA soaring survey.

Want to grow soaring? Market soaring as low-cost entertainment to
generate mass appeal. Develop a commercial gliding site that focuses
on giving rides only, quickly and cheaply.
...

I was involved in something looking like this last summer. It was
not a commercial gliding site, just a little club that had a deal
with the local municipality. As this town organizes and sponsors
various summer (i.e. holidays) activities for teenagers, the club
proposed gliding rides. The deal was that the club proposed 16
flights per day during 4 days, 8 short flights (just gliding back
from winch launch height) in the morning and 8 longer flights (20 mn)
in the afternoon for 2 groups of 8 teenagers, each boy/girl having
in alternance a short flight in the morning one day and a long flight
in the afternoon the other day, other activities were proposed for
the non flying half day. Two 2-seaters were used, each one for the
half of the flights.

I am dubious about the impact of such an action for the growth of
soaring. Of course this makes that youngsters discover a sport
they would probably never heard of otherwise, but this would probably
not be followed by any personnal committment in this sport, for many
reasons. One of them is the age of participants, which implies that
they participation is probably not their own decsision (or not completely)
but rather the decision of their parents. As this is a sponsorized activity,
the youngs and parents interested are probably among those who would
never have the money for a continued practice of the sport. Although
some of the kids were really interested, the lack of interest of some
others was clearly demonstrated by the fact that on of them fell asleep
during a long flight.

However, as opposite to John's proposal, I think that a sufficiently
long flight is essential to the promotion of our sport, i.e. a flight
with a duration that clearly shows the ability of saiplanes to
stay in the air by they own means (or rather the combination of
the energy present in the air and the skills of the pilot).