Cheap sailplanes

"Kilo Charlie" wrote in message
news:yB2sd.19804$KO5.10476@fed1read02...
Interesting argument. Also interesting responses some of which have
nothing
to do with your original post. Must just be the grumpy winter lurkers.

I agree with you. Soaring has to be "cool" again in order to have it
survive. I'm not sure that reducing the costs somewhat wouldn't help but
nevertheless that alone will not save it.

It is an instant gratification world out there. Why should a kid spend
countless hours learning how to do something and paying the dues by
watching
others do it in front of them when they can get out the X-box or Gameboy
and
go at it with minimal instruction, cost or delay?

Soaring is not much of a spectator sport but one small part of the
visibility has been taken away in the name of safety (aka liability) in
the
US by a push to totally abolish low finishes. It is clear with the sold
out
status of the UK Smokin Vids and the fact that the UK Junior Soaring Team
has so much fun with these finishes that it is interesting to young pilots
and spectators. I'm not advocating a "Redbull" type of approach to it but
the safety/liability issue has grown out of control in the US. For some
reason soaring has attracted more than its share of curmudgeons. Sports
like hang gliding with their speed courses for example, have taken the
step
to make themselves more visible to the folks on the ground.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

I'm not aware that it's had any impact on the growth of HG from all
indications.

"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
Peter Seddon wrote:
...
... gliding is VERY frustrating, we all dont have thermals at
our beck and call.
...

Very subjective. Two very pouplar sports in the USA, basket ball
and base ball seem to me much more frustrating than gliding, I can't
imagine how one can succeed in putting this big ball in this basket
or hitting this small one with this strange tool, nor what
satisfaction or enjoyment comes from that. On the other hand one
of my best satisfaction of this last summer came from a week day,
when I was at 25 km from the field together with another glider
which landed out a short time after, while I had a low save and another
one and another one, each time in very weak lift and vanishing after a
short time but each time allowing a little progress toward the home field,
until at 16 km I fell in a boomer and had the height for final
glide. I think a base ball or basket ball player can't understand
what satisfaction or enjoyment comes from that. This is why our
sport is declining.

You've totally missed the point, in the UK this year the weather has been so
bad for flying that it's not only general flying that has been hit, the two
seater comp at the Wolds Gliding club was almost a wash out. My caravan had
a lake outside for almost every day and out of eight days we only flew for
three. When I look at my log book for the past four years the number of
flights have decereased each year and I have my own aircraft. Our club is
restricted to flying at weekends only and you can't fly with a 1000ft
ceiling of total cloud cover. Where I live I havn't seen snow for a great
number of years so naturally it drops as rain. Out of the 52 flying weekends
last year, 4 were lost to holidays 6 were lost to familly committments and
about 30 were lost to bad weather. That 's the reason gliding is declining
for new members, people loose interest through lack of flying weather. The
UK has had three wery wet summers and mild wet winters, days like last
Sunday when I had 3hrs 3 mins to 12000ft are very few and far between.

Peter.

"Kilo Charlie" wrote in message
news:yB2sd.19804$KO5.10476@fed1read02...
Interesting argument. Also interesting responses some of which have
nothing
to do with your original post. Must just be the grumpy winter lurkers.

Sorry but the origional post said that the lack of cheap gliders was
responsible for the decline in gliding. Not so, in the UK the bad flying
weather over the past three years has put paid to more of our members than
anything else.

I agree with you. Soaring has to be "cool" again in order to have it
survive. I'm not sure that reducing the costs somewhat wouldn't help but
nevertheless that alone will not save it.

Come fly with us, no waiting time to join just pay us £130 for a years
membership, £2 /min aerotow and 20p /min hire, how cheap do you want it to
be.

It is an instant gratification world out there. Why should a kid spend
countless hours learning how to do something and paying the dues by
watching
others do it in front of them when they can get out the X-box or Gameboy
and
go at it with minimal instruction, cost or delay?

I can agree with that!!! But I had great fun throwing my B4 about the sky
trying to loose the last 5k feet. You dont get that with an XBox.

Peter.

"Peter Seddon" wrote in message
...

"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
Peter Seddon wrote:
...
... gliding is VERY frustrating, we all dont have thermals at
our beck and call.
...

Very subjective. Two very pouplar sports in the USA, basket ball
and base ball seem to me much more frustrating than gliding, I can't
imagine how one can succeed in putting this big ball in this basket
or hitting this small one with this strange tool, nor what
satisfaction or enjoyment comes from that. On the other hand one
of my best satisfaction of this last summer came from a week day,
when I was at 25 km from the field together with another glider
which landed out a short time after, while I had a low save and another
one and another one, each time in very weak lift and vanishing after a
short time but each time allowing a little progress toward the home
field,
until at 16 km I fell in a boomer and had the height for final
glide. I think a base ball or basket ball player can't understand
what satisfaction or enjoyment comes from that. This is why our
sport is declining.

You've totally missed the point, in the UK this year the weather has been
so
bad for flying that it's not only general flying that has been hit, the
two
seater comp at the Wolds Gliding club was almost a wash out. My caravan
had
a lake outside for almost every day and out of eight days we only flew for
three. When I look at my log book for the past four years the number of
flights have decereased each year and I have my own aircraft. Our club is
restricted to flying at weekends only and you can't fly with a 1000ft
ceiling of total cloud cover. Where I live I havn't seen snow for a great
number of years so naturally it drops as rain. Out of the 52 flying
weekends
last year, 4 were lost to holidays 6 were lost to familly committments and
about 30 were lost to bad weather. That 's the reason gliding is declining
for new members, people loose interest through lack of flying weather. The
UK has had three wery wet summers and mild wet winters, days like last
Sunday when I had 3hrs 3 mins to 12000ft are very few and far between.

Peter.



OK, I sympathize. Weather in dear old England is dreadful. I think Al
McDonald has been saying that for years. It's been a pretty wet year here
in Colorado, USA too.

OTOH, this Tuesday I towed from a snow covered runway into wave. At 18,000
feet, I had my finger on the mike button to call Denver Center for clearance
into the wave window. Before I transmitted the call, I checked the OAT. It
was -22F - pretty much the limit for gellcoat.

The wings were condensing frost right out of the supersaturated, supercooled
air. The canopy was 50% frosted over. (Yes, there really is such a thing
as clear air icing.) I asked the student to check spoilers and it took three
huge efforts to get them unlocked from the ice. I thought about landing a
spoilerless G103 on a snow covered runway with water hazards and decided
this wasn't the day so I didn't make the radio call. We didn't get rid of
the ice until below 9,000.

Ah well, the sun is shining and tomorrow should be warmer yet.

Bill Daniels

Sorry but the origional post said that the lack of cheap gliders was
responsible for the decline in gliding. Not so, in the UK the bad flying
weather over the past three years has put paid to more of our members than
anything else.

Mostly my comment was meant for the usual/typical "anti-racing" post another
person made. It seems like there needs to be little provocation for some
folks feeling the need to diss anyone that wants to leave the pattern. To
each his/her own I say.

Come fly with us, no waiting time to join just pay us £130 for a years
membership, £2 /min aerotow and 20p /min hire, how cheap do you want it to
be.

Wow! That is pretty cheap...much cheaper than I had been lead to believe
about UK clubs. Then again with the current exchange rate it may be a bit
more than at first glance! ;-)

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

In article ,
"tango4" wrote:

I'll throw something else into the pot here. The golf club I'm a member of
has a golf gaademy on site. Youngsters of 15 to 16 with handicaps of 10 and
under can apply to join the academy for a year. At the end of which the can
acheive 2 'A' Level credits. These are accepted as credit towards a place at
university with a view to careers in sports management. Is this sort of
thing a possible source of future soaring pilots? How about gliding as an
optional high school subject?

Something like this may now be possible here in New Zealand. The
new(ish) NCEA structure allows credits for activities outside school. I
understand that things such as drama and dance and music are in the
process of being put into the system.

We already have a pretty good and well-organized syllabus in gliding,
with well defined acheivements and goals. It probably wouldn't be a
huge effort to get into the NCEA system.

I have a 14 year old daughter who I've taken gliding a few times --
though not for three or four years (and not because I don't offer). I
ran a straw poll past her and some friends. The response: "We could
learn to fly instead of doing geography? Cooooool!"

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------

I continue to believe that the answer to building soaring has mainly to do
with making it more convenient. The other thing I believe is that one of the
very best things we, as sailplane pilots do is solve problems...I tend to
agree with some of the commentary on here that we just don't show enough of
how cool our sport is...the low finishes ARE cool...and occasionally someone
will get hurt...but damn are they fun!!! To this day, most of my flights end
in a low pass and quick circuit...one day it might get me...but for now, it
adds to my enjoyment and everyone who sees that sort of finish
goes..."Wow....I want to do that too..."

Not sure that's good or bad, but it definitely happens. The other thought
is, that I don't think it's the cost of the sailplane that's prohibitive, I
think it's the whole package...club fees/dues, tows, insurance, equipment,
etc...You guys can pontificate all day about how a cheap simple glider is
going to build the sport and I for one don't buy it. The first time the guy
with the new low cost glider sets off to try to accomplish some goal and a
buddy follows in a 30 year old "Old" glider and blows the living doors off
the new guy...the whole theory of new=better...starts to sink in...as...BS

If I've seen one consistent thing amongst young new prospective sailplane
types, its that they have a tough time justifying all the expense, for the
limited amount of time they get to participate ....weekends...April till
October...but for a few places in the U.S. that's a fairly common thing. So
we really come down to competing with EVERY other interesting thrill-seeking
venue out there. And quite frankly most of the rest of them are neater to
watch on TV...than ours...There's something quite simple in human nature,
that dictates that if you can watch it on TV...and then participate at any
level...you sorta get to live the experience twice. I watch my growing sons
watch surfing, snowboarding, skiing, golf, tennis...just about
everything...I think we ought to concentrate on finding a venue to air our
sport on TV...somehow. Anyone know anybody involved with WINGS?? Or any of
the extreme sport shows...?? I've got some amazing Video footage that really
looks cool...we just need a venue to get it seen by a bigger audience...

It seems we ought to try to figure out ways to get our sport seen by more
eyeballs...and make sure that what people see...is cool...WAY COOL DUDE!!!!

(imagining the following extreme sport show)

Bitchin Surfer Dude pilot 1: "So there I was dude....going up in this
bitchin wave....and whoa....I was like....this is totally gnarly dude...so I
just put the nose down and flew two hundred miles....It was awesome!!!!!

Bitchin Surfer Dude pilot2: "Whoa....I was like ...right behind him...and
then he was like...gone dude....hair on fire and movin out 140 miles an
hour....I went after him...and WE ROCKED!!!"



Okay...well....perhaps I went too far...suffice to say, we need more
eyeballs more exposure and we definitely need to adjust our view as to who
our target audience is, and define a demographic...for the pursuit of fresh
meat....for our sport...


Methinks.



Steve.

Todays youth have more disposable income than most of us could ever have
dreamed of at their age and in the future they are likely to have more
leisure time and even more money.

Not sure about more leisure time. People seem to have to work harder
than they did 30 years ago.

Flying has to become something that
youngsters 'want to do' it has to become cool. Rather than sticking with the
old way of doing things perhaps we should fire every club committee member
on the planet over 30 and let the youngsters with backwards baseball caps,
wrap around shades and baggy pants drag soaring into the 21st century. Us
old farts are not doing too good a job of stewardship if you ask me.

Er, what younger people do you mean? At our club the average age of the
members attending on Wednesdays is just short of 70. It may be slightly
younger at weekends, but not by very much.

We need a new approach.

Ian





--
Mike Lindsay

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 19:22:40 GMT, "Bill Daniels"
wrote:



We also need to stop pigeonholing young people. They come in all levels of
interest. Not all of them are into video games and hot rods. A wonderful
few really love soaring.

We need to stop driving them away.

Extremely well said, Bill.

Lennie (Surprised?)

"Kilo Charlie" wrote in message
news:2V4sd.19808$KO5.17949@fed1read02...

Sorry but the origional post said that the lack of cheap gliders was
responsible for the decline in gliding. Not so, in the UK the bad flying
weather over the past three years has put paid to more of our members
than
anything else.

Mostly my comment was meant for the usual/typical "anti-racing" post
another
person made. It seems like there needs to be little provocation for some
folks feeling the need to diss anyone that wants to leave the pattern. To
each his/her own I say.

Come fly with us, no waiting time to join just pay us £130 for a years
membership, £2 /min aerotow and 20p /min hire, how cheap do you want it
to
be.

Wow! That is pretty cheap...much cheaper than I had been lead to believe
about UK clubs. Then again with the current exchange rate it may be a bit
more than at first glance! ;-)

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix




Dont get me wrong not all clubs are as inexpensive as ours, some do charge
an arm and a leg, but to be fair the also provide a lot more bang for your
buck.

Peter