The highly successful UK Junior XC program vs. USA's nonexistantJunior XC program. Why?

In Germany there are more than 15 gliders given to junior pilots each year ranging from Libelle to Nimbus 4. Five of those are distributed on a national level. Most larger federal soaring associations also provide multiple gliders for youth promotion on a regional level. All of these gliders were privatly financed/donated at one time or another. We are not talking about state financing or our soaring association paying for everything. In most cases small clubs/trusts are founded to maintain these gliders by collecting donations and fees from supporting members. Current junior pilots take care of most maintenance work. Administration is done on an honorary basis. Former pilots chip in donations later in life when they can afford it. Whenever possible these gliders are updated to more current models, usually by collecting donations. Since gliders hardly lose value the bulk financing of a new glider can be achieved by selling the old ones. Do this steadily across more than 30 years and you see former LS1 evolve into a Discus 2ct spreading the financial burden over decades.

You are not going to copy almost a century of european gliding club culture in the States any time soon, but setting up two or three gliders for promoting junior soaring should be easy enough. A fully world championship competition ready club class glider need not cost cost more than 12k EUR in good condition with a resonable trailer (If you don't believe me, I have got one for sale). The cost of suberb instrumentation is a joke with prices of full featured variometer systems of the late nineties bottoming out and XCsoar outperforming the commercial alternatives on many details. A fully competition ready glider has never been cheaper than today.

Forget any national bodies like the SSA to take the initiative. If you want something to change then do it yourself. Find your XC enthousiastic friends, found a trust, collect donations, buy some nice club class gliders (or whatever you can afford) and find your worthy juniors to support.

Interesting post Alexander. Amazing insight. Thanks!

On Friday, September 11, 2015 at 10:52:36 AM UTC-4, Alexander Swagemakers wrote:
In Germany there are more than 15 gliders given to junior pilots each year ranging from Libelle to Nimbus 4. Five of those are distributed on a national level. Most larger federal soaring associations also provide multiple gliders for youth promotion on a regional level. All of these gliders were privatly financed/donated at one time or another. We are not talking about state financing or our soaring association paying for everything. In most cases small clubs/trusts are founded to maintain these gliders by collecting donations and fees from supporting members. Current junior pilots take care of most maintenance work. Administration is done on an honorary basis. Former pilots chip in donations later in life when they can afford it. Whenever possible these gliders are updated to more current models, usually by collecting donations. Since gliders hardly lose value the bulk financing of a new glider can be achieved by selling the old ones. Do this steadily across more than 30 years and you see former LS1 evolve into a Discus 2ct spreading the financial burden over decades.

You are not going to copy almost a century of european gliding club culture in the States any time soon, but setting up two or three gliders for promoting junior soaring should be easy enough. A fully world championship competition ready club class glider need not cost cost more than 12k EUR in good condition with a resonable trailer (If you don't believe me, I have got one for sale). The cost of suberb instrumentation is a joke with prices of full featured variometer systems of the late nineties bottoming out and XCsoar outperforming the commercial alternatives on many details. A fully competition ready glider has never been cheaper than today.

Forget any national bodies like the SSA to take the initiative. If you want something to change then do it yourself. Find your XC enthousiastic friends, found a trust, collect donations, buy some nice club class gliders (or whatever you can afford) and find your worthy juniors to support.

I suspect we have a few in the US but nobody keeps count.
At my club in NY, the juniors have 2 gliders free of cost. They have a 1-26 for early flying after solo, and a Std Libelle after they complete the private certificate.
Harris Hill has a Discus dedicated to the juniors.
Anybody else know of club ships dedicated to juniors in the US?
UH

Hank,

Your club and Harris Hill are way ahead of the curve (but still need to go further). We need dozens, hundreds more clubs like those and a special program for elite Jrs as well. Our biggest obstacle are clubs that actively discourage cross country. Not just for Juniors. First step is to understand the true nature of the problem better. Most, I suspect, would argue that no cross country is not a problem.

Sean

I for one like the direction this discussion has taken. By RAS standards it has been relatively respectful. Kudos Sean for bringing it up and taking a bit of heat. A bit of heat, a bit of sage advice, a few examples how locals HAVE stepped up.

In my backyard, I have seen responses to local efforts to increase youth and not so young soaring range from "Why help others?-I paid for my own soaring as a teen" to "I want my older glider to be flown by others but don't know how to set it up."

Ironically, we have several 2-33, 1-26 era gliders sitting unused all season mainly due to a shortage of instructors willing/able to put them to use.
I say, increase the pool of instructors and you will naturally raise the number of students.

And having given more than a few orientation rides to Civil Air Patrol cadets in gliders and airplanes I can tell you personally there is a ready demand for kids who want to "Slip the Surly Bonds" despite the competition of video games, motorsports and teenagers of the opposite sex!

One more thought (might be a bit deep for RAS): We sometimes say "Someday, when _______, I will do more for my sport, community, charities, etc." We all know at any age we are currently, some of our friends and relatives never make it to "someday." Why not do something today?!

Cheers
Gene Reinecke

On Saturday, September 12, 2015 at 9:49:30 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Hank,

Your club and Harris Hill are way ahead of the curve (but still need to go further). We need dozens, hundreds more clubs like those and a special program for elite Jrs as well. Our biggest obstacle are clubs that actively discourage cross country. Not just for Juniors. First step is to understand the true nature of the problem better. Most, I suspect, would argue that no cross country is not a problem.

Sean

One very real factor, my partner pointed out, is that club equipment is there for many to use. Taking a club ship all day can mean that someone doesn't get to fly. If that happens too often, people stop coming because not all can afford their own ship. We do give preference to pilots doing a badge leg.
Just one more thing that complicates flying XC in club machines. We encourage it, but I can see how some clubs might not.
I realize you will find this not at all acceptable, but it is a reality in many smaller clubs.
The solution is to grow bigger so the club can support more gliders. That is not a fast process but is doable with effort.
UH

Good point. We need a balance for sure. Right now the balance is pretty full in the "not cross country" direction at most clubs. Not having gliders to fly because they are all out flying XC would really be a good problem to have initially...

On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 1:00:52 PM UTC-7, Sean Fidler wrote:
Good point. We need a balance for sure. Right now the balance is pretty full in the "not cross country" direction at most clubs. Not having gliders to fly because they are all out flying XC would really be a good problem to have initially...


A little data (thanks to Frank Whiteley).

There are 37 clubs in the US with at least 5 SSA youth members. The total number is 351. If you add the smaller club programs, juniors not on youth memberships or non-SSA members and juniors flying at commercial operations, maybe there are 400-500 juniors currently flying gliders in the US. If even a third of them are reasonably committed that is something we can work with..

There is also the Collegiate Soaring Association, a 501(c)3 with an assortment of glider equipment. It's unclear to me the current level of activity within the CSA and I understand that there are issues with the bylaws of the CSA that restrict how the equipment can be used. Something to look into.

I've been noodling on a few ideas for about a year now and have come to the conclusion that we really need to understand better where the bottleneck is: intake (seems not from the data), getting to solo, getting to first XC or getting to advanced XC/racing-ready? We also need to understand the state of the junior population and what the constraints are. The solution really needs to fit the problem - even then it would take energy, commitment and resources.

I've also discovered with just a little digging that thoughtful and generous people have been working on these issues for quite some time, but results have been, well, uneven. Hip-shooting solutions will likely waste time and energy and have little impact. I'd suggest a hard look at where we stand and some directed creativity to see if we can't come up with new approaches and focused investment (of time and money) to make some progress.

I'm willing to do some work on it, but for now I'm still counting leeches from the last r.a.s. racing discussion.

Andy Blackburn
9B

On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 11:22:38 PM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:

I've been noodling on a few ideas for about a year now and have come to the conclusion that we really need to understand better where the bottleneck is: intake (seems not from the data), getting to solo, getting to first XC or getting to advanced XC/racing-ready? We also need to understand the state of the junior population and what the constraints are. The solution really needs to fit the problem - even then it would take energy, commitment and resources.


In addition to the bottlenecks to progress there needs to be an assessment of where we lose juniors in the process because it's pretty obvious that not all of them are making it into full-fledged XC and racing pilots as adults. Do the commitments of the last couple of years of high school get them? College? Moving into the working world? It's not just development, but retention that need a hard, analytical look. Right now we have a good number of opinions and anecdotes that can lead us where to look, but how much of what effects prevail when and where probably needs to be assessed at more than a cursory level. I've heard heartfelt proposed solutions over the years that I suspect a first-order look at the actual data would show to be fruitless.

Andy

On Monday, September 14, 2015 at 2:45:41 AM UTC-4, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 11:22:38 PM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:

I've been noodling on a few ideas for about a year now and have come to the conclusion that we really need to understand better where the bottleneck is: intake (seems not from the data), getting to solo, getting to first XC or getting to advanced XC/racing-ready? We also need to understand the state of the junior population and what the constraints are. The solution really needs to fit the problem - even then it would take energy, commitment and resources.


In addition to the bottlenecks to progress there needs to be an assessment of where we lose juniors in the process because it's pretty obvious that not all of them are making it into full-fledged XC and racing pilots as adults. Do the commitments of the last couple of years of high school get them? College? Moving into the working world? It's not just development, but retention that need a hard, analytical look. Right now we have a good number of opinions and anecdotes that can lead us where to look, but how much of what effects prevail when and where probably needs to be assessed at more than a cursory level. I've heard heartfelt proposed solutions over the years that I suspect a first-order look at the actual data would show to be fruitless.

Andy

There is a long way to go before we can begin to emulate the European gliding scene and as Alexander Schwagermakers pointed out you need to start somewhere. I believe the start point is long before the provision of contest aircraft for juniors to fly.

Club's must be willing to promote cross country and just as important is the organization of club resources to attain the objective. The clever ones would plan their fleets to provide aircraft for a variety of flying opportunities and promote standards that once attained would allow pilots to advance to higher performance aircraft. The aircraft at the top of the scale would be maintained expressly for cross country. The example citing the inconvenience to a member who would have to forfeit his flight to a cross country pilot would not occur, e.g. an LS4 is not a local soaring aircraft, for a one hour float around the airfield a 1-26, Ka8 or similar glider is perfectly adequate. Some clubs in Europe refine this process by allocating aircraft on a daily basis for cross country soaring. Not only is an aircraft allocated, also a weather briefing is conducted and a task set. Pilots who are not allocated an aircraft become willing retrieve crew knowing they will have the benefit of the same when it is their turn to fly. Pilots who are allocated an aircraft have the incentive to attempt the task knowing help has already been organized should they need a retrieve. Just like gaggle flying, groups can get better results even when conditions are not optimal.

The Europeans who have contributed to this discussion have intimated the club culture in Europe encourages cross country regardless of age. Sean is convinced this is not the case this side of the pond, I concur. Not every pilot is going to become a contest pilot, the same for juniors but many more would if cross country flying was made available and promoted in a meaningful way. Low costs and the availability of aircraft go a long way to enabling more pilots to gain the time and skills cross country flying requires. Convince the clubs that it is in their best interests to organize their activities to promote higher standards that lead to cross country flying and we might have a starting point for a revival.