Attracting the kids

On Aug 16, 1:49 am, "Mike Schumann" mike-nos...@traditions-
nospam.com wrote:
I suspect that what hooked her was the winch launch.

Basically yes, but I don't want to overstate that opinion;
I strongly suspect she would have become hooked anyway.

The same thing
happened to me while visiting Germany. Glider pilots who have never
experienced a winch launch have no idea how much fun the launch itself is.

They are gobsmacked just *watching* a few winch
launches, particularly comparing 0-60kt in 5s
(cars 0-60mph in 15s and seeing the *top* of the
aircraft as it ascends. It *looks*dangerous and exciting,
so (with exceptions) they want to try it.


Pulling 2 Gs and gaining 1,000 ft in 40 seconds is how you get kids'
attention. The fact that it is MUCH cheaper, makes it possible for them to
come back on a regular basis.

They (and me for that matter) appreciate that in the early
stages it is important and *fun* to be doing lots of circuits
and landings. Not to mention cable-break practice ("if
the mud floats around your face you've done it about
right, if it plasters itself over the canopy you've been
too enthusiastic" Thermalling is fun, but a bit
repetitive if you can't go cross-country.

I'll go even further and state that I suspect a more difficult
stage will be early post-solo when circuits and landings
are "mastered" but they aren't capable/confident of
going cross-country.

tom gardner

This message should go private, but I don't know your
address.


KHRJ reports an average of 84 aircraft movements a
day as of 2005.
Any higher or lower since then?

I have no idea. On weekends, not much power traffic
comes and goes. Maybe a couple or up to, oh, 10 movements?
Whomever comes up with the '84' movements a day is
an unknown person to me. Maybe they are averaging
in our glider movements? Even then, I know nobody
but the club is logging flights and we haven't been
asked to provide that info to the airport or the county.


Means communication between pilots
and winching ops.

Agreed. Sometimes, we have the power types that love
to do straight in approaches and the no-radio approaches
and the REALLY WIDE PATTERN approaches.

Gliders land adjacent to paved runway in grass area.
Is that on the
west or east side?

Normally, the west side grass is used for landing for
runway 23 ops and the east side grass is used for landing
for runway 05 ops. Power traffic makes left patterns
and gliders make right patterns.

Is that true at both ends?

We are currently taking off and landing on the pavement
on 05 because the county had some earthwork done recently.
They really buggered up the grass we use for the 05
ops. They graded out a lot of the area to the southeast,
'borrowing' fill material and placing it on the 'drop
off' to the south west of the runway. The slope used
to be, oh 2:1 or 3:1, but they flattened it out to
4:1 or even flatter. In the process, they made our
grass area much wider and has potential for a lot of
glider staging, but they just left it rough as a cob.


60 power aircraft
based there?

I doubt that number. Maybe only half that.


Is that a golf course
to the east?

Yes. 'Keith Hill Country Club.' I think 36 holes
now. And I believe it's actually part of Campbell
University, which is the clump of building to the north-east
of the golf course. The University usually serves
as the 'house thermal.'

Some slope off runway is mentioned.

See answer above. Yea, as you depart on R/W 23, the
ground off the end of the runway really drops down
to the floodplain of the Cape Fear River.

Lights standing or recessed? How much room between
the pavement and
lights?

Lights are the typical 'up on a post' type. There's
10' between edge of pavement and the lights. Currently,
the runway is 75 feet wide, but there are plans afoot
to widen it to 100 feet.

Honestly, it looks like a great place for winching.
What you need is
a demo day.

Oh yea! Bring us a 'HydroStart' from the Netherlands.
Don't know what the airport would think if our avgas
purchases for the towplane dropped to almost nothing...

Tom Gardner wrote:

But, to return to the thread; as I intimated, I suspect the
rollercoaster of a winch launch is a better way of getting
kids hooked than a rather sedate aerotow.

I thoroughly agree. Its bad news for amusement park operators, though -
their rides are rather unimpressive once you're used to winching.

I soloed on a winch. My only pre-solo aero-tow was the spin demo flight:
we managed to find thermals when we needed them for my actual spin
training. From my early aero tows I got the distinct impression that
winching is easier for the early ab initio than aero towing, simply
because most gliders are stable on the wire once they're established in
the climb while staying behind the tug is HARD while your handling
skills are still developing.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Aug 16, 1:00 pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
I thoroughly agree. Its bad news for amusement park operators, though -
their rides are rather unimpressive once you're used to winching.

grin

Yes, I've used the "you just sit there and have something
done to you" argument too, and it *is* working. On Saturday
I took my daughter on a ride that whirled you around from 5'
to maybe 100' and flipped you upside down occasionally.
She thought it wasn't worth the £5.

I've also tried to dissuade her from flying; since she's had
the experience of spins, loops, chandelles, there's clearly
nothing left for her to do. That *isn't* working.

tom gardner

On Aug 15, 9:13 pm, Ray Lovinggood
wrote:
And where would we get a 'proper Lepo?' :-)

Chop the top off my wife's Prius? X-)

Driver of the "Ultimate Golf Cart"
-- Matt

On Aug 16, 7:37 am, Ray Lovinggood
wrote:

KHRJ reports an average of 84 aircraft movements a
day as of 2005.
Any higher or lower since then?

I have no idea. On weekends, not much power traffic
comes and goes. Maybe a couple or up to, oh, 10 movements?
Whomever comes up with the '84' movements a day is
an unknown person to me. Maybe they are averaging
in our glider movements? Even then, I know nobody
but the club is logging flights and we haven't been
asked to provide that info to the airport or the county.

Yes, the glider traffic is a fair chunk of that. Consider that the
takeoff counts
as one movement, and the landing of the towplane and glider each count
as another,
so those "really good" days with 20+ launches contribute 60+
"movements".


Oh yea! Bring us a 'HydroStart' from the Netherlands.
Don't know what the airport would think if our avgas
purchases for the towplane dropped to almost nothing...

Another issue with using a winch. At one time the club DID use
a winch, back when it operated at Wilson, NC. Ask Paul about
that sometime. I don't know how it was involved with the club
leaving Wilson.

On Aug 15, 5:00 pm, bagmaker
wrote:
There is no blanket fix, nor club style that suits all.
I advocate the new, shiny style of glider for all operations because
that is what appeals to me.
I am mid 40s and have been gliding for 20 years, my own club is large
and fairly all-encompassing in its approach to new members.
We have a duo, Blanik and 3 IS-28s for training/ checks and split the
combination between sites.
The Lark is a much better proposition for attracting visitors than the
Blanik, the duo puts them both to shame but seldom gets a run for new
pilots or AEFs due to costs mentioned in other posts. I personally
prefer to fly a Blanik over a club lark ( I am told the private ones
are much nicer) however if someone told me they had turned all of them
into scrap-metal for the cost of the aluminium I would hardly lose
sleep.

All of the above aircraft are a vast improvement over a 2-33, but dont
confuse my arguments with my dislike for the 2-33 OR its ilk. There is
nothing wrong with old Vauxhalls or Buicks either, you just cant sell
them to kids.

My argument (check some of my previos posts on this) is for CHANGE,
this in itself is uncomfortable for many people. Gliding is in decline
yet we continue with what we do. Thats crazy!
People, we have to change, embrace it. For some folks any change is a
bitter pill, but please, look further than what suits your own needs,
at your own location.

I believe part of that change is for shiny ships, embracing GP NZ style
coverage of events and fast, glitzy promo ads such as are found made by
the juniors in Australia and Britian. Search for loch-smoker on
you-tube - THAT is an enticing video for potential young pilots.
Compare it to the recent SSA vid. - good work but not for me.

Along with Bill Daniels I endorse more world-wide winching.
If you havent gone up a wire this will be hard to understand, it is a
blast! Cheap and easy, the only way to teach gliding in my opinion. I
have never met a person who didnt get hooked after a winch launch. $7
space shuttle imitation.

I do, however, understand that winching is the current most dangerous
aspect of worldwide gliding, with some 50% of deaths attributed to
winch-related accidents. (this figure is not mine, the statement comes
from a world champion and I am just using it - I assume it is a correct
figure). Better winches, technology in rope, more training, more
experience may improve this figure.
More aerotowing will only see us broke. Sure there is a place for it,
but not outside competition, early starting cross-country launches and
retreives, aero-towing must be a second option to getting us into the
sky. Just too damned expensive, noisy and in-efficient.

Ultimately, self launching gliders may be the only viable option to us,
lets hope I am still doing a sport that is recognised as mainstream at
that time everyone is self-launching. Because unless we change our
ways, my generation of kids may be the worlds last glider pilots.

Are we understanding that fully? 1, maybe 2 generations to go, then no
more gliding. Period.

The less voices we have, the less wallets buy the gliders, the less
airspace we get, the less airfeilds remain, the more newbies fear the
unknown, no-one fixes pawnees for tugs anymore nor builds new styles
with a hook, - a flat spin developes into a spiral to our sad end.

Now before some of the old gin-swillers out there completely cover
their white moustaches in spittle as they read this, scoffing, please
get it into your heads that change will NOT mean you are NOT doing the
odd flight at the field every year, and 20 more even longer, faster
flights at the bar in your clubs all over the world.
AS one of you, in the future, I just want some kids to help pay for the
priveledge of listening.

bagger

diving for cover

--
bagmaker

WAW!!!! Let me know where do you live....for that statement I will
send you a fat bottle of good old "Makers Mark".....and don't dive for
cover, I used to but not anymore.

Jacek
Pasco, WA

I have read all this and the thing that's missing is effort. Kids
nowadays don't have to do much to be entertained. When I was growing
up, everything required effort. I had to cut grass and throw papers to
make enough money to feed my model habit. Five lawns would buy a
Nordic A-2 kit, and then I had to build it. I ran wings for weeks at a
time before someone would offer me a glider ride. Kids now have models
already built for them, cheap video games and all sorts of other
entertainment to keep them occupied... and parents that would rather
throw money at them than spend time with them. However, remembering
the young people at Houston that were flying, and the parents that
were the exception to the last statement... When they did bring other
young folk to the airport, their friends were astonished that they
were actually flying. It didn't seem to matter that they were flying a
2-33, they were flying. It isn't just gliding that's declining, but
all general aviation is falling off, too.

I fly both, real and R/C sailplanes. I'm almost 56, and I seldom see
anyone younger than 40 at either place... the gliderport, or the R/C
field. I know they're out there, but their numbers are small, indeed.

Jack Womack

Martin Gregorie wrote:
I soloed on a winch. My only pre-solo aero-tow was the spin demo flight:
we managed to find thermals when we needed them for my actual spin
training. From my early aero tows I got the distinct impression that
winching is easier for the early ab initio than aero towing, simply
because most gliders are stable on the wire once they're established in
the climb while staying behind the tug is HARD while your handling
skills are still developing.

I have never winched but that sounds right to me. Learning the tow was the
most difficult phsyical task (as opposed to things like landing where it's
mostly mental effort) of the whole thing. Although I managed to fly a
large portion of the tow on my second flight, I'm informed that this is
abnormal, and it took many more flights to become comfortable with it.
Even post-solo, having transitioned to single-place gliders and with 40-50
flights under my belt, I went through a period about a month or two long
where I felt uncomfortable under tow and really looked forward to reaching
release altitude so I wouldn't have to do it anymore.

I'm all better now, tow is a piece of cake and as fun as any other routine
part of a flight, but it was definitely tough to learn and I can see why
winching would be much easier.

As for danger, we have enough open fields around our airport that I'm
confident of a safe outcome of basically any tow emergency. The only time
I got particularly worried was flying a fully loaded Grob 103 on a very
hot and humid day behind a tow pilot who didn't feel like climbing near
the airport before heading out. Being unusually low and distant from the
airport made me sweat, but some quick mental arithmetic confirmed that the
Grob's 37:1 glide ratio kept us well within safe distance of the field the
whole way up, so I never tried to get him to turn around.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

Michael Ash wrote:
As for danger, we have enough open fields around our airport that I'm
confident of a safe outcome of basically any tow emergency.

Likewise, on my home field, which also has a lot of open, flat fields
round it.

I'm happy about winch launch failures at home - the winch is always on
the end of a wide enough run so landing ahead from a low failure is
never a problem. I've never flown at a site with the winch placed off in
the boonies but I do wonder if that sort of layout can make low breaks
somewhat problematic. I'd be interested to hear peoples experiences of
launch failures with this winch placement.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |