What percentage of USA glider pilots compete?

toad wrote:
On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy

If anything I think you are underestimating the percentage who are
inactive.

My estimates are 5 to 6 thousand active glider pilots in the US.


On Mar 28, 12:35 pm, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:
toad wrote:
On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy

A potentially more interesting (and much less knowable) number would
be what percentage of the total time flown is flown by competition
pilots. I think that might give a more accurate picture. Or
not...

P3

On Mar 28, 5:08 pm, wrote:
If anything I think you are underestimating the percentage who are
inactive.

My estimates are 5 to 6 thousand active glider pilots in the US.

On Mar 28, 12:35 pm, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:



toad wrote:
On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

An even better metric would be percentage of miles flown.

On Mar 28, 5:56 pm, "Papa3" wrote:
A potentially more interesting (and much less knowable) number would
be what percentage of the total time flown is flown by competition
pilots. I think that might give a more accurate picture. Or
not...

P3

On Mar 28, 5:08 pm, wrote:

If anything I think you are underestimating the percentage who are
inactive.

My estimates are 5 to 6 thousand active glider pilots in the US.

On Mar 28, 12:35 pm, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:

toad wrote:
On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Papa3 wrote:
A potentially more interesting (and much less knowable) number would
be what percentage of the total time flown is flown by competition
pilots. I think that might give a more accurate picture. Or
not...

P3

On Mar 28, 5:08 pm, wrote:

If anything I think you are underestimating the percentage who are
inactive.

My estimates are 5 to 6 thousand active glider pilots in the US.

On Mar 28, 12:35 pm, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:




toad wrote:

On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -



Maybe not significant - I am a "casual" competitor in that I only fly regionals,
and have a club class ship.

I fly one day most weekends - am an instructor at a little club, so will put in
at least two or three instruction flights per day at the field. When I get a
chance, I strap the Std Cirrus on and go XC.

I do have the GNSS logger and PDA and contest number abnd FAI license so I
suppose I am not that much of a dilletante but - basically I am a non-contest
pilot who occasionally competes.

Taking total flying time in last year an dividing by the time for the little bit
of competition flying I managed.

Contest Hours 51.92%
Contest Launches 14.29%

Contest flight duration 381.82% of Average

Contest flying pushes your boundaries. Teaches you things and most importantly
gets me flying - long challenging flights, instead of around the goldfish bowl
in a 30-40 year old vintage trainer.

Some are in a better position I am sure at their clubs.

On Mar 28, 3:35 pm, Jeremy Zawodny wrote:
toad wrote:
On Mar 28, 2:13 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
The soaring safety foundation website claims 12,512 SSA members in
2005.

Which gives 4.7 % of SSA members competed in the last 3 years.

Now how many of those members were active ?

Got it. For reasons I cannot justify, I'd make the wild-ass assumption
that 30-40% of them are inactive.

Jeremy

My first flight in a sailplane was in 1970. The argument about
competition coverage was going on in the 70's and it will probably pop
up as long as we have a Soaring magazine. There's a few points i'd
like to make.

If you have ever taken a history course, you've learned a lot about
wars. They are the most historical events, even if they are not
indicative of most of our daily lives.
The same can be said for the coverage of sailplane competitions. They
are the most newsworthy events in the sailplane world. When I think
of flying sailplanes, I think of lazy summer afternoon flights and
that's probably how most of us experience soaring. That doesn't mean
I don't want to hear about competitions.

Only a small percentage of pilots compete. Only a small percentage of
pilots can afford to compete. Of the remaining percentage of
sailplane pilots, many would compete if they could afford to, in both
time and money.

The number of pilots who compete does not represent the interest in
sailplane competiton. There are many people who are great fans of
football, basketball, baseball, etc but who are not competitors or
even interested in being competitors in these sports.