Growth in soaring

Eric, many of your points are valid and some of the reasons I switched
last year to sailplanes from HG.

When I go flying in my sailplane I fly and typically am able to soar
95+% of the time and 2/3's of the time I am able to do some XC. My
percentage of flying, soaring and XC in my HG was 50%. If I consider
the time invested in trying to fly it is cheaper, in the long run, to
fly sail planes. The number of days I can fly and fly safely is much
greater.

I have also introduced a few HG pilots to sailplanes and when
explaining the minimal costs of the club here in UT they are amazed at
how cheap it is per hour of flying!

Regarding numbers for HG, my last HG cost me ~$13,000 (list price at
1.32 for the euro is $16,950) and provides a 20/1 glide and a ~110 FPM
sink rate. All carbon construction, except for dacron sail, 14.6
meter span and has spoilers and flaps for controls! Our competition
system and format is very similar to sailplane and the majority of
time we land back at the home field. Most HG competitions are held in
the flat lands and aerotow with ultralights is the ticket! In 2006
the world championships were held in FL, right down the road from
Seminole where the US Seniors are held, and we averaged 85-120 mile
triangle flights per day.

Just wanted to shed some light on the current technology of HG's. I
agree that sailplane clubs should be aware of the local HG and PG
clubs, make friends with them and be sure to educate them low cost of
sail plane flying.

Ron Gleason

Oh, one more thing: the pilot's wife is so pleased that he now makes it
home in time for dinner!

I can relate to that :-)

Based on a conversation with a former hang glider pilot that was
spending less by soaring in a sailplane, flying more, and enjoying it
more. And it was only a Ka-6e that he was flying.

For me, in the Northeast US, a day of hang gliding meant a multi-hour
drive (one way), and then a long hike to the launch site - it was an all
day affair. Because we have trees everywhere, launch site usability on a
given day was often limited by the wind direction. Trekking to the
launch site and then not flying got old after a while (OK, it took a
couple of decades :-) ).

I'm very happy flying my LS6 but nothing can replace flying from the top
of a mountain of launching from a cliff (very different on a calm day
than on a windy day). I miss it sometimes.

Tony V.

There's one important point that I haven't seen others put into the
discussion.

Taking your comment - (1975 we would make about 150 flights on a Sat & Sun)
I started in 1971 in Cyprus and trained on T21's, circuits were almost 4
minutes on
a good day and at the speed of landing you were never far from the launch
point.
It was easy in those days to get 50 or 60 launches in, with out rush using a
single cable
winch and a tractor as cable puller on our narrow runaway.

Now we tend to fly for longer, the costs are relative high in monitory terms
so we pick
when to fly.

I just wonder how the hours flown stack up now to those days. I know from
my data
which I have put into my own Excel sheet that my averages are dramatically
better now.

But the cost in time & money does mean you have to be dedicated on those
winter circuit
days. I'm lucky though that at my club in North Wales (Denbigh) we have a
good ridge
and excellent wave. Hence the reason our visitors last week got gold and
diamonds heights.

Malcolm..




"fred" wrote in message
oups.com...
A question often asked is "Why has the glider activity declined?" In
1975 we would make about 150 flights on a Sat & Sun. Nothing like that
now but we had our best year 2006 in a long time. The decline (I
believe) is the competition for disposable time Vegas is many times
larger, Indian Casinos abound. Water craft, off road vehicles etc all
compete.
A well known ride operator told me that 1800gliderrides expected to
sell FOUR MILLION in rides in 2007. All sold on the internet. They
have no operations of their own, but have about 900 domain names, most
of them the same. USE CAUTION. fred

On 16 Mar 2007 11:28:12 -0700, "fred"
wrote:

A question often asked is "Why has the glider activity declined?"
A well known ride operator told me that 1800gliderrides expected to
sell FOUR MILLION in rides in 2007.

I live in Italy, and I base my observations on club-managed soaring
activity. Almost no commercial operations are available in my country,
and are quite rare in Europe.

I believe that promotion of our sport can't benefit from glider rides.
Glider riders are expensive, not much fun, and a typical "been there,
done that" situation.
Intruduction courses are much better at retaining new members.
Costs are not the main reason for not getting into gliding.
Fear is.
Gliding is dangerous, IMVHO, or at least perceived as dangerous.

I have spoken with quite a number of people who have quit gliding
after a few or many years. Cost is the first topic they provide, but
if you ask some questions, available time (work, family) is generally
the 2nd. The third is having achieved only small goals (or, high
expectations and lesser results; results/costs ratio); this is
definitely harder to admit for most.
Finally, two topics get into play, and I strongly believe they are
most important:
.. the quality of sociality in the club, or the bad quality of human
relations (quarrelling between groups of members, disagreements, poor
management of the club, sometimes even intrusions in very private
aspects of family life...)
.. safety of the sport. In the 15 years of my gliding career, my
phonebook spots a black line in almost every page.

Sociality can be very hard to manage, bust must be addressed by the
club's management. When fights and quarrelling are going on, and the
members feel they have to "choose which side they should stand", or
they struggle to keep themselves out of the fight, my experience is
that the club will loose about 10percent of its members. And most of
the rest are quite unhappy.
I expect that commercial operations might be less prone to this
problem. If the operator is customer-oriented, of course.

Safety, and the achievement of reasonable goals, can in part be
addressed by a group of volunteers devoted to personalized, advanced
cross-country techiniques. But, it takes some very special kind of
people, to stay in gliding for a long time at high level of
commitment, like most of us do. We can't expect everyone to be like
us.

I believe any promotion/retention strategy can't be complete if it
doesn't aim at these two topics also.

Aldo Cernezzi

2cernauta2 wrote:
Intruduction courses are much better at retaining new members.
Costs are not the main reason for not getting into gliding.
Fear is.
Gliding is dangerous, IMVHO, or at least perceived as dangerous.

I have spoken with quite a number of people who have quit gliding
after a few or many years. Cost is the first topic they provide, but
if you ask some questions, available time (work, family) is generally
the 2nd. The third is having achieved only small goals (or, high
expectations and lesser results; results/costs ratio); this is
definitely harder to admit for most.
Finally, two topics get into play, and I strongly believe they are
most important:
. the quality of sociality in the club, or the bad quality of human
relations (quarrelling between groups of members, disagreements, poor
management of the club, sometimes even intrusions in very private
aspects of family life...)
. safety of the sport. In the 15 years of my gliding career, my
phonebook spots a black line in almost every page.

Sociality can be very hard to manage, bust must be addressed by the
club's management. When fights and quarrelling are going on, and the
members feel they have to "choose which side they should stand", or
they struggle to keep themselves out of the fight, my experience is
that the club will loose about 10percent of its members. And most of
the rest are quite unhappy.
I expect that commercial operations might be less prone to this
problem. If the operator is customer-oriented, of course.

Safety, and the achievement of reasonable goals, can in part be
addressed by a group of volunteers devoted to personalized, advanced
cross-country techiniques. But, it takes some very special kind of
people, to stay in gliding for a long time at high level of
commitment, like most of us do. We can't expect everyone to be like
us.

I believe any promotion/retention strategy can't be complete if it
doesn't aim at these two topics also.

Aldo Cernezzi

Fantastic analysis, Aldo. Each of your points are so true. I have seen
each one occurring. In particular a lot of casualties, even for very
good pilots, even instructors. I would only add that, since only few
people will retain the necessary high level of commitment for a long
time, it is essential to gain new recruits among young people who are
the best fit to begin gliding (learn faster, progress faster, etc.).
And i maintain that number one factor why young people interested in
this activity don't join is money. For slightly older people it is time.
Of course, to attract young people, another essential factor is good
social management and the presence of other young people including
ladies. You will have hard time to attract young people in a crowd of
retirees. To say the truth, in the clubs i have seen, there has always
been a steady influx of young guys and girls. But after one of two
years, most of them have disappeared by lack of money-time-motivation,
whatever.






--

Michel TALON

On Mar 21, 10:38 am, (Michel Talon) wrote:
2cernauta2 wrote:
Intruduction courses are much better at retaining new members.
Costs are not the main reason for not getting into gliding.
Fear is.
Gliding is dangerous, IMVHO, or at least perceived as dangerous.

I have spoken with quite a number of people who have quit gliding
after a few or many years. Cost is the first topic they provide, but
if you ask some questions, available time (work, family) is generally
the 2nd. The third is having achieved only small goals (or, high
expectations and lesser results; results/costs ratio); this is
definitely harder to admit for most.
Finally, two topics get into play, and I strongly believe they are
most important:
. the quality of sociality in the club, or the bad quality of human
relations (quarrelling between groups of members, disagreements, poor
management of the club, sometimes even intrusions in very private
aspects of family life...)
. safety of the sport. In the 15 years of my gliding career, my
phonebook spots a black line in almost every page.

Sociality can be very hard to manage, bust must be addressed by the
club's management. When fights and quarrelling are going on, and the
members feel they have to "choose which side they should stand", or
they struggle to keep themselves out of the fight, my experience is
that the club will loose about 10percent of its members. And most of
the rest are quite unhappy.
I expect that commercial operations might be less prone to this
problem. If the operator is customer-oriented, of course.

Safety, and the achievement of reasonable goals, can in part be
addressed by a group of volunteers devoted to personalized, advanced
cross-country techiniques. But, it takes some very special kind of
people, to stay in gliding for a long time at high level of
commitment, like most of us do. We can't expect everyone to be like
us.

I believe any promotion/retention strategy can't be complete if it
doesn't aim at these two topics also.

Aldo Cernezzi

Fantastic analysis, Aldo. Each of your points are so true. I have seen
each one occurring. In particular a lot of casualties, even for very
good pilots, even instructors. I would only add that, since only few
people will retain the necessary high level of commitment for a long
time, it is essential to gain new recruits among young people who are
the best fit to begin gliding (learn faster, progress faster, etc.).
And i maintain that number one factor why young people interested in
this activity don't join is money. For slightly older people it is time.
Of course, to attract young people, another essential factor is good
social management and the presence of other young people including
ladies. You will have hard time to attract young people in a crowd of
retirees. To say the truth, in the clubs i have seen, there has always
been a steady influx of young guys and girls. But after one of two
years, most of them have disappeared by lack of money-time-motivation,
whatever.

--

Michel TALON- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I have enjoyed reading the many posts on growing soaring. The one
question I have not heard is, "What can I do to promote soaring?"

Here are some actions you can take that will help promote soaring:

Contact your local press: Getting media attention isn't difficult. I
will be glad to help. The SOARING PUBLICITY HANDBOOK is filled with
ideas and templates to make it easy. In a recent issue of SOARING, I
made an offer to write press releases for glider organizations to jump
start the process.

If you would like to have an electronic form of the handbook, contact
me at . You can view the handbook on-line at
http://www.ssa.org/members/governance/volunteers.asp Click on the
Publicity Committee's Home Page.

Write: A number of SSA members, including me, have written articles
for aviation and general audience magazines. Use your connections -
professional publications, alumni magazines, etc. to find a
publication opportunity.

Create an attention-grabbing YouTube video. YouTube has some
absolutely fantastic soaring /gliding photography.

Contact your local TV stations: The TODAY show featured Lester Holt's
flight in a sailplane, and several advertisements use sailplanes. I
have found local television stations are also receptive to the idea of
featuring local soaring.

Look at the web sites of clubs with strong youth programs. Contact
club members with connections to the CAP or scouting and find ways to
work with those groups.

Airshow: Going to Oshkosh? Volunteer at the SSA booth. Many smaller
shows love to include gliders. Offer to display your ship.

Join and share your success with the Promote Soaring e-mail group.
Contact me to sign up.

Lots of people submit ideas about what ought to be done. That is
helpful if the suggestions are accompanied by a commitment to act.
Today is the perfect time to make an effort to introduce soaring to
your community

On Mar 21, 7:01 am, 2cernauta2 wrote:
On 16 Mar 2007 11:28:12 -0700, "fred"
wrote:

A question often asked is "Why has the glider activity declined?"
A well known ride operator told me that 1800gliderrides expected to
sell FOUR MILLION in rides in 2007.

I live in Italy, and I base my observations on club-managed soaring
activity. Almost no commercial operations are available in my country,
and are quite rare in Europe.

I believe that promotion of our sport can't benefit from glider rides.
Glider riders are expensive, not much fun, and a typical "been there,
done that" situation.
Intruduction courses are much better at retaining new members.
Costs are not the main reason for not getting into gliding.
Fear is.
Gliding is dangerous, IMVHO, or at least perceived as dangerous.

I have spoken with quite a number of people who have quit gliding
after a few or many years. Cost is the first topic they provide, but
if you ask some questions, available time (work, family) is generally
the 2nd. The third is having achieved only small goals (or, high
expectations and lesser results; results/costs ratio); this is
definitely harder to admit for most.
Finally, two topics get into play, and I strongly believe they are
most important:
. the quality of sociality in the club, or the bad quality of human
relations (quarrelling between groups of members, disagreements, poor
management of the club, sometimes even intrusions in very private
aspects of family life...)
. safety of the sport. In the 15 years of my gliding career, my
phonebook spots a black line in almost every page.

Sociality can be very hard to manage, bust must be addressed by the
club's management. When fights and quarrelling are going on, and the
members feel they have to "choose which side they should stand", or
they struggle to keep themselves out of the fight, my experience is
that the club will loose about 10percent of its members. And most of
the rest are quite unhappy.
I expect that commercial operations might be less prone to this
problem. If the operator is customer-oriented, of course.

Safety, and the achievement of reasonable goals, can in part be
addressed by a group of volunteers devoted to personalized, advanced
cross-country techiniques. But, it takes some very special kind of
people, to stay in gliding for a long time at high level of
commitment, like most of us do. We can't expect everyone to be like
us.

I believe any promotion/retention strategy can't be complete if it
doesn't aim at these two topics also.

Aldo Cernezzi


Aldo,

I agree with your assesment. The social aspect of soaring is the
downfall of our sport and the society behind it.

Jacek
Washington State

2cernauta2 wrote:
....
Sociality can be very hard to manage, bust must be addressed by the
club's management. When fights and quarrelling are going on, and the
members feel they have to "choose which side they should stand", or
they struggle to keep themselves out of the fight, my experience is
that the club will loose about 10percent of its members. And most of
the rest are quite unhappy.
I expect that commercial operations might be less prone to this
problem. If the operator is customer-oriented, of course.

Regardless of orientation, commercial operators can fire problems - even
if the operator is wrong. At least the level of conflict is reduced and
that is more important than being right.

Clubs OTOH, have no real means of imposing discipline and conflict is
very hard to control. My wife, who lectures and researches in this area
tells me that it is actually a wonder that any voluntary association
survives for more than 5 years.

One feature of gliding clubs that helps them survive is the fixed assets
- buildings, site, aircraft, etc - which survive power struggles,
splits and personality conflicts. What changes are the people in
control. In our area, one club's splits have been the foundation of at
least three others which all prosper so there is a positive side!

GC

On Mar 16, 11:28 am, "fred" wrote:
A question often asked is "Why has the glider activity declined?" In
1975 we would make about 150 flights on a Sat & Sun. Nothing like that
now but we had our best year 2006 in a long time. The decline (I
believe) is the competition for disposable time Vegas is many times
larger, Indian Casinos abound. Water craft, off road vehicles etc all
compete.
A well known ride operator told me that 1800gliderrides expected to
sell FOUR MILLION in rides in 2007. All sold on the internet. They
have no operations of their own, but have about 900 domain names, most
of them the same. USE CAUTION. fred

One often cited reason for the decline is cost. But if cost was so
central it would also impact aviation in general. Yet the number of
people professionally employed in flight traing has increased from
under 11,000 in 1998 to over 14,000 in 2004, an increase of 27%
(http://www.census.gov/epcd/susb/2001/us/US611512.HTM). Consequently,
I don't think that cost is a detriment any more today than it was 10
years ago.

Personally, I think there are simply more recreational opportunities
competing for the same people, and they will chose the option that is
most convenient. GA grows because it is very easy to find a commercial
operator who will train you how to fly. Compare that to gliding (worse
for soaring). People in large metropolitan areas have to spend a full
day, at a minimum, to get glider training (providing that they are
lucky enough to be within a 2-3 hour drive of a glider site with
training).

Tom

GA isn't growing either. The number of student pilot licenses issued has
dropped over 20% in the last few years. One of the leading flight schools
in the Twin Cities (Wings) has just closed as a result.

Mike Schumann

wrote in message
ups.com...
On Mar 16, 11:28 am, "fred" wrote:
A question often asked is "Why has the glider activity declined?" In
1975 we would make about 150 flights on a Sat & Sun. Nothing like that
now but we had our best year 2006 in a long time. The decline (I
believe) is the competition for disposable time Vegas is many times
larger, Indian Casinos abound. Water craft, off road vehicles etc all
compete.
A well known ride operator told me that 1800gliderrides expected to
sell FOUR MILLION in rides in 2007. All sold on the internet. They
have no operations of their own, but have about 900 domain names, most
of them the same. USE CAUTION. fred

One often cited reason for the decline is cost. But if cost was so
central it would also impact aviation in general. Yet the number of
people professionally employed in flight traing has increased from
under 11,000 in 1998 to over 14,000 in 2004, an increase of 27%
(http://www.census.gov/epcd/susb/2001/us/US611512.HTM). Consequently,
I don't think that cost is a detriment any more today than it was 10
years ago.

Personally, I think there are simply more recreational opportunities
competing for the same people, and they will chose the option that is
most convenient. GA grows because it is very easy to find a commercial
operator who will train you how to fly. Compare that to gliding (worse
for soaring). People in large metropolitan areas have to spend a full
day, at a minimum, to get glider training (providing that they are
lucky enough to be within a 2-3 hour drive of a glider site with
training).

Tom




--
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