2-33

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

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, 8:26*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

Years ago, I did a comparative study of the costs of various soaring
operations in our Region (SSA Region 2) for a report I was working
on. The finding was that the above costs would be at the lower end
of what it costs for ANY club in the US. And, costs can be much
higher... the going rate for 2,000 foot aero tow at a commercial
operation in the mid- Atlantic region is close to $50. So, a person
doing 30 tows per year is already out $1500 exclusive of any sailplane
rental, instruction, etc.

There are many reasons for these higher costs (compared to most
European clubs), but some of them a

- Aero Tow Only: A towplane is an expensive piece of equipment to
operate and maintain compared to a winch.
- Airport Ownership: Only a small fraction of clubs own the property
from which they operate. This has to do with land use policy in the
US. Suburban sprawl means that any place close enough to a major
population center will cost several hundred thousand dollars to
acquire (and several million for a place like the airport where VSC
operates). As a result of not owning the airport, clubs struggle to:
* Build repair and maintenance facilities and skills (meaning they
tend to pay for maintenance and repairs)
* Create clubhouses (making it harder to attract/retain members)
* Create inviting places for non-flying members to hang out (same)
* Pay for aircraft tiedowns and/or hangars (taking money away from
maintenance or capital funds and restricting the type of aircraft due
to lack of hangarage)
* Run a winch operation (since many public use airports are NOT winch
friendly)
- Alternative flying options: Paradoxically, the fact that the US is
a relatively easier/cheaper place for people who want to learn to fly
means that gliding (which is sometimes viewed as a second tier behind
power flying) has to compete harder for potential pilots.

Having flown at glider clubs around the world including the UK,
Germany, and Sweden, I'm always struck by how nice the environments
are at even moderate sized clubs. A bar, a small restaurant,
bunkhouse, and most of all, well-stocked workshops go a long way to
growing clubs and creating the volunteer corps which helps to keep
costs in check.

Erik

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

I think Erik nailed it on where the money goes and why we are
challenged in the US in a variety of ways.

Insurance is our single largest fixed cost. Nearly half of your
club's insurance costs and not covering nearly as nice of equipment.
A Duo in the US with commercial coverage would cost in the
neighborhood of $4000 to insure. More or less depending on the
declared value, but you can see that just covering the insurance for
100hrs of flight time per year is $40/hr. If it sits idle for part of
the year, that makes the hourly rate even worse.

Critical mass of clubs is obviously dependent on the fixed costs, but
I'd venture to guess that somewhere around 40 paying members is
required to cover basic fixed costs with dues in the $30/$40 a month
range. If you want to buy or lease new aircraft, you're tacking on
$10-20/mnth for every acquisition. But add 10 members and you don't
need to add any additional monthly rate.

If I can succeed in building our club by 10-20 members, that is enough
to afford the mortgage/lease on a pretty nice glider or several decent
gliders. It costs almost nothing in additional overhead to add 10 or
20 members, but their dues go straight to improving the clubs
financial strength and more importantly you need a large base in order
to keep the club active. People lead busy lives, so 10 or 20% of the
membership coming out on the weekend might be all that is reasonable
to expect.

I have looked at alternative fee structures. We do not charge an
hourly rate for our aircraft, so we aren't that far off your club
rates. If I had the same number of members as your club, I'd
probably be able to roll back dues to $30/mnth and that puts us in a
similar price range to your German rates of around $400/yr. But no
winch to provide cheap launches, so you're definitely getting a good
deal. I'd rather charge a couple more dollars per month and eliminate
the per flight fees. It's just an accounting headache and in the end
doesn't raise a tremendous amount of money.

Good to hear how it works for others.

Morgan

On Sep 16, 8:15*pm, mattm wrote:
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

On Sep 16, 8:26*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

All I can say is that this works for our group. The fee structure does
reflect our approach of generating enough cash to buy or pay for the
next glider or tug. We're now in year 1 of paying for the purchase of
the '21 which will take 5 years. We could cut our fees substantially
if we chose to keep the fleet stagnant, but we , strong users of
2-33's, realize they will not last forever.
We are an 18 year old club that started with 30 members leasing
everything and now have about 100 members(25 juniors) and own 3
2-33's, a 1-34, the '21, and a Pawnee.
Our net member growth has been about 10% /yr after the usual
attrition.
Our fixed costs are not trivial as you might expect. Insurance is
about $12000/yr, airport rent and tiedowns about $22,000/yr. In the
northeastern US, we will never have our own airport.
BTW- Kids pay $50 initiation and $13/ month. It was $8/month but was
increased to help with '21 cost. Once they are in the 1-26, they fly
for cost of the tow.
We also, like many US operations, have quite a number of private and
syndicate gliders, about 25 currently.
FWIW -we see virtually no price resistance with our structure. In fact
most people think it is quite reasonable.
Oor biggest challange in member retention is the reality of time
commitment required given that almost everyone drives an hour or more
each way to fly. And we are the closest(give or take a mile or 2) to
the New York City market.
My personal view is that our biggest challange is making our sport
worth the time required. Urban sprawl, land cost, and airspace issues
mean that, in many parts of the country, Dad can't do chores around
the house on Saturday morning, and spend the afternoon at the gliding
club. Gliding is now an all day activity.
So it isn't the same everywhere and all us have to find ways that work
for our groups. This is why I said in another post that there is no
"right" answer
CU
UH

On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 03:41:50 -0700 (PDT), ray conlon

I may be wrong, on this but aren't many of the "clubs" In Europe
subsidized by there respective governments? I know at one time that
was true...here except for the CAP program, that just doesn't happen.
And of course the fact they don't have the culture of "sue everyone in
site" makes the insurance cost a whole different ball game. Those are
huge factors in keeping cost lower and attracting more people into the
sport.

I think it was decades ago, when some funding was given to the
National Aero Clubs, which in turn shared those funds between the
affiliated clubs dedicated to any of the aviation activities, with
motor flying getting by far the largest part of it.

In Italy this has lead to the introduction in service, for the gliding
clubs, of a significant number of tow planes, mainly from US WW-II
leftovers (L-5, L-19). That was from the '50s to the early '80s.
Many of them needed extensive work, of course. They're still the
backbone of Italian gliding, today, after repeated overhauls and
rebuilds.

There was also a program for helping clubs acquire new gliders and
Robin tow planes. The clubs were in competition with each other,
trying and grab one of the very few aircraft available. And, mmm...
the chairmans had to vote for the "right" candidate to the NAC's
board, otherwise...
Still, the clubs had to pay for the aircraft, but could do so with
very long terms.

As of today, in Italy there are no funds for the clubs. I may be
wrong, we just enjoy a very limited exemption on avgas taxes, only for
training flights. Sometimes, a few thousand bucks may be spent by the
NAC on aerotows, for the training or coaching of young competition
pilots.

On the other hand, we suffer very high avgas prices, even by European
standards, very high land rates (for those clubs which are not owners
of their land), very high maintenance prices.
On State-owned airports, we also pay landing fees which substantially
increase the cost of towing (in Rieti, 65 Eur for 2.000ft launch).
In general, Italian clubs really _need_ powerful towplanes, as our
strips are usually quite short and close to obstacles. A weaker tow,
like an ultralight or a motorglider, would more often be grounded for
the day's wind conditions, making most members unhappy.

So, the _average_ fees a
annual 1.000 Eur (between 400 and 2000, peak values)
tow 30-60 Eur
glider rent - free

our clubs have very differing glider fleets. Most used trainer is the
ASK-21, then Grobs and K-13. Janus, and in a few lucky clubs,
Duo-Discus for advanced x-c training. Single seaters are not generally
in big numbers, mainly used for the progression of the new members,
not very much for extended x-c activity.
Private ownership is encouraged. One of the advantages of the larger
membership is it's easy to find 2 or 3 partners for shared ownership.
The most successful clubs are not the cheapest, but those with 100
members and long opening periods (not limited to weekends).

Junior members usually get much better prices, but even so, most of
the young pilots in Italy are the sons and daughters of active,
competitive pilots.
Since the last 10 years, almost half of the new membership has been
coming from other forms of flying, like para-hang gliding.

aldo cernezzi

ray conlon wrote:
I may be wrong, on this but aren't many of the "clubs" In Europe
subsidized by there respective governments? I know at one time that
was true...here except for the CAP program, that just doesn't happen.
And of course the fact they don't have the culture of "sue everyone in
site" makes the insurance cost a whole different ball game. Those are
huge factors in keeping cost lower and attracting more people into the
sport.

I think these subsidies have disappeared in France at least 30 years
ago, but they helped the creation of the activity after the war.


--

Michel TALON

On Fri, 17 Sep 2010 06:03:30 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:


All I can say is that this works for our group. The fee structure does
reflect our approach of generating enough cash to buy or pay for the
next glider or tug. We're now in year 1 of paying for the purchase of
the '21 which will take 5 years. We could cut our fees substantially
if we chose to keep the fleet stagnant, but we , strong users of
2-33's, realize they will not last forever.

How many hours do your giders fly per year?

We are an 18 year old club that started with 30 members leasing
everything and now have about 100 members(25 juniors) and own 3
2-33's, a 1-34, the '21, and a Pawnee.

Ahhh... that explains a lot.

Nearly all European clubs are a lot older (usually they were founded
in the early 1950's), therefore we had a lot more time top build up a
fleet of glass gliders (my club purchased its first ASW-15 in 1967).
If it takes only five years for you to pay an ASK-21, you might be
Schweizer-free after 20 years...


Our fixed costs are not trivial as you might expect. Insurance is
about $12000/yr, airport rent and tiedowns about $22,000/yr. In the
northeastern US, we will never have our own airport.


Do you lease part of the airport from a commercial operator or is it
just the rent for the piece of land you airport is built upon?

BTW- Kids pay $50 initiation and $13/ month. It was $8/month but was
increased to help with '21 cost. Once they are in the 1-26, they fly
for cost of the tow.
We also, like many US operations, have quite a number of private and
syndicate gliders, about 25 currently.


FWIW -we see virtually no price resistance with our structure. In fact
most people think it is quite reasonable.

That amazes me.
I have no idea about the income of kids in your area, but in my club
many of the kids couldn't afford if they had to pay significantly more
than the current fees.

Oor biggest challange in member retention is the reality of time
commitment required given that almost everyone drives an hour or more
each way to fly. And we are the closest(give or take a mile or 2) to
the New York City market.

Yup - quite a challenge here, too (altough our members usually live
within a 30 minutes drive).

My personal view is that our biggest challange is making our sport
worth the time required. Urban sprawl, land cost, and airspace issues
mean that, in many parts of the country, Dad can't do chores around
the house on Saturday morning, and spend the afternoon at the gliding
club. Gliding is now an all day activity.

Quite a problem, I agree.

So it isn't the same everywhere and all us have to find ways that work
for our groups. This is why I said in another post that there is no
"right" answer

100% agree.

CU
Andreas

The critical mass of a club is very important.

I was treasurer at LESC when our club was struggling to meet our
monthly obligations with only 35 members a few years ago.

We had 3 2-33's, 1 1-26, 1 1-34, 1 Pilatus B4, and 2 Calair
towplanes.

But last year when local Glider clubs at Hemet, CA were kicked off the
airport we gained about 35 members.

Based on all the extra income selling more tows etc, we are now a
healthy club and can start thinking about buying a nice 2 seater for
dual training and rides.

We have had to offer a lot of rides to keep us afloat flying Boy
Scouts, Adventure Clubs, and gift certificates in the past.

I feel that when the club goes below 50 members its a lot harder to
make ends meet.

We charge 50/mth dues , 25/mth for Juniors, 10/mth if you own your
own glider and just need tows.

Tows are $63 for the first 3000' to get up on our ridge at Elsinore.

Ray