2-33

On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:39:35 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:


From my experience as commercial operator and then club leader at VSC:


Hello Hank,

what are the fees at your club?


Regards
Andreas

I learned to fly in a 2-33 years ago at a commercial operation. There
were a few L-13's on the field as well, but for some reason the 2-33
and I seemed to do well together. I viewed the Schweitzer as a means
to an end, and that was to get my ticket and move on to something
better. At Issaquah Soaring that meant a 1-26. I must have been very
naive by todays standards: I didn't know that the 2-33 was an ugly
piece of **** and if I was smart I would have demanded the L-13 or
simply given up my dream of soaring..............as to the 1-26 the
day I got checked out to fly it made me think I had finally "arrived"
and could now play with the "big boys" Of course the big boys flew
ASW-15's, ASW-20's and an RS-15 that I thought looked like a
rocketship.

I couldn't wait to help these guys rig their ships, as a guy in his
late teens/early twenties the thought of helping these guys rig their
unbelievably cool gliders was a source of endless enthusiasm and
inspiration.

Fast forward to now: At our field it's very rare for any student or
low time pilot to come over and help any of the private guys rig. In
fact I'm led to believe that they have been told that we are a bunch
of low level XC flying lunatics and should be avoided! The students
tend to huddle together and talk amongst themselves or feverishly text
their buddies. I don't recall any of them asking us seasoned pilots
about local conditions, what the weather might do today, where the
best routes for XC might be........I find it all very strange. True,
they are students, but someday students are supposed to become pilots
and soaring pilots are want to go XC, I think.......

Our club would also do well to start making the instructor corp pay
monthly dues, and to make students pay the full membership fees and
dues. We probably see a shortfall of over $5000 a year due to our
current policies. From what I've seen some of our instructors seem to
think they and their students have priority on the field. More than
once while waiting for the towplane I've seen a Blanik get pulled in
front of a waiting private ship, with the excuse that students have
priority.

Maybe students are the future of soaring, well...............yes, some
are...........out of the many that start I bet only a handful will
move forward and experience the full joy of what soaring has to offer.
I don't believe it is our business to push people towards this,
something like soaring pulls people...............those that don't fly
a lot in my opinion are dangerous and should leave the
sport.................perhaps to text their buddies and tell them how
rad it was to fly in a glider.

Brad

I think you're seeing one of the primary reasons that soaring is in
decline and that people want to blame 2-33s. Times and people have
changed. Instant gratification, me first, and a sense of entitlement
are all pretty common in modern society. What often hasn't changed is
the approach that clubs take to attracting and addressing the changing
demographic.

I've seen it professed that the downfall of soaring is in fact due to
high performance glass ships and the fact that they result in people
being gone all day and that there is no challenge or camaraderie like
in the good ole days when people landed out in their 1-26 near the
airport every weekend. I'm sure there is some semblance of truth in
that, but only when taken into context of how society has changed and
that pilots of the 70's or 80's had a different set of pressures and
norms to work against.

Ultimately it is the people involved and how they welcome new faces
into soaring that probably makes the biggest difference. I appreciate
the constructive tack that this conversation is taking. As the
president of a small and struggling club, I can use all of the help
and ideas I can get in trying to motivate existing members to come out
and fly and to get new people involved.

For what it is worth, despite the feeling that not having a sexy ship
in our fleet was hurting our long term retention, I drove the
acquisition of a second 2-33 as a priority over something higher
performance. If you want good activity in a club, you need to make
sure that students that go solo have something to fly and that it
doesn't interrupt training as well.

Morgan


On Sep 16, 10:29*am, Brad wrote:
I learned to fly in a 2-33 years ago at a commercial operation. There
were a few L-13's on the field as well, but for some reason the 2-33
and I seemed to do well together. I viewed the Schweitzer as a means
to an end, and that was to get my ticket and move on to something
better. At Issaquah Soaring that meant a 1-26. I must have been very
naive by todays standards: I didn't know that the 2-33 was an ugly
piece of **** and if I was smart I would have demanded the L-13 or
simply given up my dream of soaring..............as to the 1-26 the
day I got checked out to fly it made me think I had finally "arrived"
and could now play with the "big boys" Of course the big boys flew
ASW-15's, ASW-20's and an RS-15 that I thought looked like a
rocketship.

I couldn't wait to help these guys rig their ships, as a guy in his
late teens/early twenties the thought of helping these guys rig their
unbelievably cool gliders was a source of endless enthusiasm and
inspiration.

Fast forward to now: At our field it's very rare for any student or
low time pilot to come over and help any of the private guys rig. In
fact I'm led to believe that they have been told that we are a bunch
of low level XC flying lunatics and should be avoided! The students
tend to huddle together and talk amongst themselves or feverishly text
their buddies. I don't recall any of them asking us seasoned pilots
about local conditions, what the weather might do today, where the
best routes for XC might be........I find it all very strange. True,
they are students, but someday students are supposed to become pilots
and soaring pilots are want to go XC, I think.......

Our club would also do well to start making the instructor corp pay
monthly dues, and to make students pay the full membership fees and
dues. We probably see a shortfall of over $5000 a year due to our
current policies. From what I've seen some of our instructors seem to
think they and their students have priority on the field. More than
once while waiting for the towplane I've seen a Blanik get pulled in
front of a waiting private ship, with the excuse that students have
priority.

Maybe students are the future of soaring, well...............yes, some
are...........out of the many that start I bet only a handful will
move forward and experience the full joy of what soaring has to offer.
I don't believe it is our business to push people towards this,
something like soaring pulls people...............those that don't fly
a lot in my opinion are dangerous and should leave the
sport.................perhaps to text their buddies and tell them how
rad it was to fly in a glider.

Brad

On Sep 16, 12:57*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:39:35 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

From my experience as commercial operator and then club leader at VSC:

Hello Hank,

what are the fees at your club?

Regards
Andreas

Initiation is $300
Dues $35/month
2000' tow is $25 and $13 for Jrs
2-33 is @26/hr and $13 for Jr's
1-26 is $20/hr and N/C for Jrs
1-34 $28/hr and $14 for Jrs
K21 is $40/ hr for all- that will drop in 5 yrs time when it is paid
for.
General approach is Jr's pay variable costs and fixed costs are
covered by regular members.
Jrs are about 25% of membership and about 35% of activity
FWIW

On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:50:01 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:


Initiation is $300
Dues $35/month
2000' tow is $25 and $13 for Jrs
2-33 is @26/hr and $13 for Jr's
1-26 is $20/hr and N/C for Jrs
1-34 $28/hr and $14 for Jrs
K21 is $40/ hr for all- that will drop in 5 yrs time when it is paid
for.
General approach is Jr's pay variable costs and fixed costs are
covered by regular members.
Jrs are about 25% of membership and about 35% of activity


Argh... impressive. Does your club have a web site?


I'd estimate that an average pilot with, say, 30 flights and 30 hours
with a mix between 2-33, 1-26 and 1-34 per year pays about $1.900 per
year, and an average junior student pilot with the same hours about
$1.300 per year. Am I halfways correct?


Sorry if I'm being offensive, but to me these fees are brutal.
Please allow me a question: How many members does your club have, and
what is causing such high costs?

I have to admit that unless your club has to pay a formidable rent for
the use of your airfield I don't have the slightest clue what could
cause such costs for a glider operation.

Regards
Andreas

Similar rates in our club and ours is also pretty cheap by some
standards.

$40/mnth dues
Aircraft: $7/flight
2000ft tow: $30

Your 30 flights/30hrs is still in the $1500 range thanks mostly to tow
costs.

I would love to have our average member taking 30 flights. Students
yes, more actually. Average members are not as active with far fewer
flights than 30 I would guess. We love them, they pay their dues and
help us with our fixed costs, but I'd like to see more members out and
flying.

Costs in the US depend a lot on the location of the club. I would
guess that a typical club pays the most in rent/mortgage. Then
probably insurance. (Remember, we are talking about the US and we
love to sue everyone for everything) Aircraft leases, maintenance,
utilities, misc.

Our club of around 40-50 members requires very careful attention to
finances to stay afloat with the above cost structure.

Some things we do to support Juniors are including kids automatically
with a parent membership. So a juniors parent joins the club for $40/
mnth and their children are automatically covered as club members. It
can be beneficial because sometimes it is a kid that is really
interested, but we get mom or dad to take a demo (in a 2-33) and they
end up giving soaring a try as well. Young students in college get an
extremely discounted rate for monthly dues. $10 gets their monthly
dues covered. Right now I don't think we have any college students on
the roster though, not for lack of trying. We are located 70 miles
from the closest college though.






On Sep 16, 5:26*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:50:01 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Initiation is $300
Dues $35/month
2000' tow is $25 and $13 for Jrs
2-33 is @26/hr *and $13 for Jr's
1-26 is $20/hr and N/C for Jrs
1-34 $28/hr and $14 for Jrs
K21 is $40/ hr for all- that will drop in 5 yrs time when it is paid
for.
General approach is Jr's pay variable costs and fixed costs are
covered by regular members.
Jrs are about 25% of membership and about 35% of activity

Argh... impressive. Does your club have a web site?

I'd estimate that an average pilot with, say, 30 flights and 30 hours
with a mix between 2-33, 1-26 and 1-34 per year pays about $1.900 per
year, and an average junior student pilot with the same hours about
$1.300 per year. Am I halfways correct?

Sorry if I'm being offensive, but to me these fees are brutal.
Please allow me a question: How many members does your club have, and
what is causing such high costs?

I have to admit that unless your club has to pay a formidable rent for
the use of your airfield I don't have the slightest clue what could
cause such costs for a glider operation.

Regards
Andreas

On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:16:03 -0700 (PDT), Morgan
wrote:

Similar rates in our club and ours is also pretty cheap by some
standards.

$40/mnth dues
Aircraft: $7/flight
2000ft tow: $30

Your 30 flights/30hrs is still in the $1500 range thanks mostly to tow
costs.

I would love to have our average member taking 30 flights. Students
yes, more actually. Average members are not as active with far fewer
flights than 30 I would guess. We love them, they pay their dues and
help us with our fixed costs, but I'd like to see more members out and
flying.

Costs in the US depend a lot on the location of the club. I would
guess that a typical club pays the most in rent/mortgage. Then
probably insurance. (Remember, we are talking about the US and we
love to sue everyone for everything) Aircraft leases, maintenance,
utilities, misc.

Thx a lot for your numbers!
Are you able to provide some typical numbers for rent, mortgage and
insurances?

For comparison:
My club with about 85 to 90 active members pays 18.000 Euro per year
for the insurances of nine gliders (ASK-21, Ka-8b, 2*DG-300, ASW-24,
ASW-27, Duo Discus XL, SF-34B, Mistral-C), a Super Dimona motorglider
and a DR-300 tow plane. All our gliders apart from Ka-8 and Mistral-C
are covered by hull insurance.


Our club of around 40-50 members requires very careful attention to
finances to stay afloat with the above cost structure.

I see other clubs with similar size having similar problems: Few
members, not much flying by paying members, therefore very limited
income because income is provided by flying time.


Some things we do to support Juniors are including kids automatically
with a parent membership. So a juniors parent joins the club for $40/
mnth and their children are automatically covered as club members. It
can be beneficial because sometimes it is a kid that is really
interested, but we get mom or dad to take a demo (in a 2-33) and they
end up giving soaring a try as well. Young students in college get an
extremely discounted rate for monthly dues. $10 gets their monthly
dues covered. Right now I don't think we have any college students on
the roster though, not for lack of trying. We are located 70 miles
from the closest college though.

Have you considered a different kind of fee system?
An example:
In my club we have a flat rate of 305 Euro per year that includes all
the flying (including all winch launches) for any glider. This flat
rate is identical for all members, the only additional fees are the
member fees of about 140 Euro and 70 Euro for junior pilots without an
income.
This means, a pilot in my club pays 445 Euro (respectively a student
pilot375 Euro) per year, no matter how much he flies. The only
additional fees are aerotows (which are similar to yours - aertow fees
are calculated to cover the costs of the tow plane).

Very easy to calculate, stable income, and tends to provoke pilots to
fly *much* more often because flying is essentially free (flatrate!).

We are of the opinion that the introduction of this flat rate saved
our club 25 years ago when takeoff numbers started to decline (we had
a similar system these days as you have now).

With this system we get an overage of cash of about 15.000 Euro per
year which we are using to pay for our part of the airfield since 2000
(it'll be payed at the end of 2011).


Might this be a useful system for a US club (with adjusted fees of
course)?


Regards
Andreas







On Sep 16, 5:26*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:50:01 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Initiation is $300
Dues $35/month
2000' tow is $25 and $13 for Jrs
2-33 is @26/hr *and $13 for Jr's
1-26 is $20/hr and N/C for Jrs
1-34 $28/hr and $14 for Jrs
K21 is $40/ hr for all- that will drop in 5 yrs time when it is paid
for.
General approach is Jr's pay variable costs and fixed costs are
covered by regular members.
Jrs are about 25% of membership and about 35% of activity

Argh... impressive. Does your club have a web site?

I'd estimate that an average pilot with, say, 30 flights and 30 hours
with a mix between 2-33, 1-26 and 1-34 per year pays about $1.900 per
year, and an average junior student pilot with the same hours about
$1.300 per year. Am I halfways correct?

Sorry if I'm being offensive, but to me these fees are brutal.
Please allow me a question: How many members does your club have, and
what is causing such high costs?

I have to admit that unless your club has to pay a formidable rent for
the use of your airfield I don't have the slightest clue what could
cause such costs for a glider operation.

Regards
Andreas

"Andreas Maurer" wrote in message
...

Sorry if I'm being offensive, but to me these fees are brutal.
Please allow me a question: How many members does your club have, and
what is causing such high costs?

Don't know about anyone else, but I would love to have that club near me so I
could pay those "brutal" costs.

Vaughn

On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 21:39:50 -0400, "vaughn"
wrote:


"Andreas Maurer" wrote in message
.. .

Sorry if I'm being offensive, but to me these fees are brutal.
Please allow me a question: How many members does your club have, and
what is causing such high costs?

Don't know about anyone else, but I would love to have that club near me so I
could pay those "brutal" costs.

Wrong side of the big pond I guess...
Here in Germany you seldom have to drive more than 15 miles to the
next gliding club...

But honestly I'd like to know where all that money goes - in other
words: What is this cost factor ( (one that German clubs don't have to
pay) which forces the club to demand such fees?

Regards
Andreas

On Sep 16, 9:39*pm, "vaughn" wrote:
"Andreas Maurer" wrote in message

...

Sorry if I'm being offensive, but to me these fees are brutal.
Please allow me a question: How many members does your club have, and
what is causing such high costs?

Don't know about anyone else, but I would love to have that club near me so I
could pay those "brutal" costs.

Vaughn

Our club has similar rates: $40/mo dues, $29 for 2K tow,
$12/hr for L13, $18/hr for L33, $35/hr for 304C, N/C for instruction.
By far the largest expense is towplane maintenance. Insurance
jumped this year because of two expensive claims in two years,
but I believe it's somewhat proportional to the amount you're paying
for all your planes. $1M liability is included (standard amount),
and the deductibles are small (again standard amount). We
were hoping that our dues could decrease since we had an
increase in membership this year, but we had to buy a G103
after the L13 was grounded, so we'll be paying that off for a while.

-- Matt