$75,000 2-33

On Tue, 13 Mar 2018 06:48:13 -0700 (PDT), ND
wrote:

and 2-33's are robust. (how many times has your club had to repair the nosewheel of a k-21?)

Since 1986 when we purchased our ASK-21 (which now as 7.000 hrs):
Never.

Le mardi 13 mars 2018 14:48:15 UTC+1, ND a écritÂ*:
On Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at 3:55:41 AM UTC-4, krasw wrote:
Many contributors argue that everything should be cheap, and even cheaper is better, because low costs means more new pilots. Yet no evidence of this causality is available. We got to stop pretend that this is cheap hobby, it is not. But at the same time it is not expensive compared to many other activities. Gliding is in the reach most educated/working adults, they can afford it IF THEY WANT. I know clubs that offered introductory flights at ridiculously low price to attract new pilots. Nobody came, they thought that "it probably is not much fun because it is so cheap". Then they implemented hefty price increase and voila, flights were booked full. Price is the product?

you want the answer why we still use them?

•because they are inexpensive to purchase, fly, and own
•there's a ****load of them here
•it's fun to hang out the rear window while a student flies
•we americans are a proud race, and they are american gliders (ok no but really, people here just like them) im intensely displeased at the lack of options when it comes to american made options.
•students beat on aircraft, and 2-33's are robust. (how many times has your club had to repair the nosewheel of a k-21?)

I have no problem with you having this opinion. Just don't complain about dwindling membership, or average ages of members being somewhere north of 60....

As for inexpensive... if having 2-33's in your fleet makes that you can't attract sufficient new (and young!) members, that's probably the most expensive way of flying in the long run.

As for sturdiness - we never had a collapsed nose wheel on the ASK21.

On Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at 10:46:07 AM UTC-4, Tango Whisky wrote:
Le mardi 13 mars 2018 14:48:15 UTC+1, ND a écritÂ*:
On Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at 3:55:41 AM UTC-4, krasw wrote:
Many contributors argue that everything should be cheap, and even cheaper is better, because low costs means more new pilots. Yet no evidence of this causality is available. We got to stop pretend that this is cheap hobby, it is not. But at the same time it is not expensive compared to many other activities. Gliding is in the reach most educated/working adults, they can afford it IF THEY WANT. I know clubs that offered introductory flights at ridiculously low price to attract new pilots. Nobody came, they thought that "it probably is not much fun because it is so cheap". Then they implemented hefty price increase and voila, flights were booked full. Price is the product?

you want the answer why we still use them?

•because they are inexpensive to purchase, fly, and own
•there's a ****load of them here
•it's fun to hang out the rear window while a student flies
•we americans are a proud race, and they are american gliders (ok no but really, people here just like them) im intensely displeased at the lack of options when it comes to american made options.
•students beat on aircraft, and 2-33's are robust. (how many times has your club had to repair the nosewheel of a k-21?)

I have no problem with you having this opinion. Just don't complain about dwindling membership, or average ages of members being somewhere north of 60...

As for inexpensive... if having 2-33's in your fleet makes that you can't attract sufficient new (and young!) members, that's probably the most expensive way of flying in the long run.

As for sturdiness - we never had a collapsed nose wheel on the ASK21.

ND's opinion comes from growing out of the largest and most active junior program in the US.
They have no problem attracting and keeping young people.
Those kids don't know that they are not having fun learning in 2-33's.
I can say the same for our club.
I have been close to about a dozen K-21's, including 2 in our club. Of those, more than half have had the nose wheel broken(none in our club while we've had them).
We also use our '21's for contest flying as part of our advanced training.
Modernizing the fleet should be a part of a long term plan, but it takes time to build the equity needed to do so. Our 2-33's paid for getting started on our first '21.
UH

Ok, so ASK 21 nose gear can indeed collapse (if you dive into ground at 30 degrees angle) and therefore 2-33 is better alternative. Got it.

IMHO ASK 21 is far from state of the art. It glides like a pig and is heavy on controls. It is 70's technology. There are more modern alternatives available.

On Monday, March 12, 2018 at 4:45:06 PM UTC-4, Michael Opitz wrote:
The problem I have seen
over many years, is that the typical average USA club members just
don't have the dedication or discipline to follow the proven European
model. Until that mentality changes, the differences between
equipment will continue to be dramatic, and the few hard working
members will continue to realize they are being taken advantage of,
burn themselves out, and leave to do other things. The slackers are
then left asking themselves "What happened?"

RO

Hey Mike,

I asked the question because I wanted to get these sorts of responses. Having flown extensively in UK and Europe, it's exactly the above that leaps out. The clubs do all of their own work and have the facilities required to do that work (shops and hangars). Being one of the guys who is becoming burned out (two full refinish projects in the last 5 years), it's that community that's missing in many clubs in the US (though not all).

One related thing though is that issue of owning the airfield. I noted the large club that bought their field for 190,000 DM in 1999 as mentioned by Andreas. If we tried to buy our airfield 20 years ago, the asking price was $5,000,000 (five million) and today it's north of $9,000,000. Because of land use policies in the US, there is little separation between City/Town and "country", so anything within 100 miles of a major population center is going to be incredibly expensive.

It's been my observation that most of the more successful clubs (again with some exceptions) have ownership of the airport. One of the big problems (as your club knows quite acutely) is that being able to afford an airport in the US anywhere near a major population center is a challenge. So, you either end up "out in the boondocks" (for our EU friends, that means a 2 hour to 3 hour drive from where people live) or you end up coexisting on a busy public use airport with a lot of issues (such as not being able to winch launch).

It's not that Americans are (all) stupid or stubborn, but the economics are fundamentally different. And yeah, some of us are incredibly stupid and stubborn.

Erik Mann

You could buy a farm with sufficient space to grade and seed your own
runway.Â* The farm house would make a terrific club house and the barn
would be turned into a shop.Â* That would be a lot cheaper that $5-9
million and wouldn't have to be too far away from population centers.

On 3/13/2018 10:10 AM, Papa3 wrote:
On Monday, March 12, 2018 at 4:45:06 PM UTC-4, Michael Opitz wrote:
The problem I have seen
over many years, is that the typical average USA club members just
don't have the dedication or discipline to follow the proven European
model. Until that mentality changes, the differences between
equipment will continue to be dramatic, and the few hard working
members will continue to realize they are being taken advantage of,
burn themselves out, and leave to do other things. The slackers are
then left asking themselves "What happened?"

RO
Hey Mike,

I asked the question because I wanted to get these sorts of responses. Having flown extensively in UK and Europe, it's exactly the above that leaps out. The clubs do all of their own work and have the facilities required to do that work (shops and hangars). Being one of the guys who is becoming burned out (two full refinish projects in the last 5 years), it's that community that's missing in many clubs in the US (though not all).

One related thing though is that issue of owning the airfield. I noted the large club that bought their field for 190,000 DM in 1999 as mentioned by Andreas. If we tried to buy our airfield 20 years ago, the asking price was $5,000,000 (five million) and today it's north of $9,000,000. Because of land use policies in the US, there is little separation between City/Town and "country", so anything within 100 miles of a major population center is going to be incredibly expensive.

It's been my observation that most of the more successful clubs (again with some exceptions) have ownership of the airport. One of the big problems (as your club knows quite acutely) is that being able to afford an airport in the US anywhere near a major population center is a challenge. So, you either end up "out in the boondocks" (for our EU friends, that means a 2 hour to 3 hour drive from where people live) or you end up coexisting on a busy public use airport with a lot of issues (such as not being able to winch launch).

It's not that Americans are (all) stupid or stubborn, but the economics are fundamentally different. And yeah, some of us are incredibly stupid and stubborn.

Erik Mann

--
Dan, 5J

Maybe it's training, maybe it's pilots.
When I have been checked out in a -21, Grob twin, etc., (at several US locations, HHSC was one) once they see my hours in various single seat glass, there is no discussion of the ship (TO, stall, handling, etc.).
The ONLY real concern was, "minimum energy landing, tail first......we HATE fixing the nose wheel!".

As to the rest of this thread, I'm just reading, not commenting. Everyone has their idea, this thread likely won't change anything.
Yes, I started in, and trained others in, the 2-33, but with steam gauges, not a glass panel.
Carry on.

On Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at 12:17:02 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
You could buy a farm with sufficient space to grade and seed your own
runway.Â* The farm house would make a terrific club house and the barn
would be turned into a shop.Â* That would be a lot cheaper that $5-9
million and wouldn't have to be too far away from population centers.


That's another good reason to move to New Mexico :-)

Finding a piece of land in the Northeast within say 80 miles of New York that meets reasonable size criteria (say 300 x 2000) and level and not bordered by Mcmansions is a Quixotic quest. We actually came close to buying a property many years ago (30+), but even at that time it was close to $750K IIRC (that's about $1.7M in today's dollars).

Mike's club (Nutmeg Soaring) moved out to a rural location a while back, but it's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that membership levels have been hard/impossible to grow due to the distance from where people live....

P3

On Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at 12:17:02 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
You could buy a farm with sufficient space to grade and seed your own
runway.Â* The farm house would make a terrific club house and the barn
would be turned into a shop.Â* That would be a lot cheaper that $5-9
million and wouldn't have to be too far away from population centers.

Yep- In the area we fly, in the lower Hudson Valley of New York, the farm would only be about 2 million. And that assumes the neighbors would not put up a fuss.
UH

At 16:51 13 March 2018, Papa3 wrote:

Mike's club (Nutmeg Soaring) moved out to a rural location a while
back,
bu=
t it's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that membership
levels
ha=
ve been hard/impossible to grow due to the distance from where
people
live.=
...

P3


Yes Erik, it has been a challenge. When we were tenants in CT close
to NYC, we had 85-90 members, but we kept having to move from
one airport to another for various reasons. After 47 years of being
gypsy nomads, a core group decided that it was time to get a place
of our own. Property values in CT were out of reach, so our search
landed us about a 2 hour drive away in the northern foothills of the
Catskills. The price was right, so we set up a deal so that we could
afford to buy it. The club fractured in half over this decision. The
half that didn't go to Freehold either stopped flying, or went to other
operations in the NYC metro area. Members bought RV's, and we
put in campsites with hook-ups along the creek so that the CT folks
could spend the weekends without driving back and forth. Now, ~15
years later, a lot of the old CT members are aging out, and Greene
County is the poorest county in all of NY State, so although we do
have some local members, getting more is a challenge. We do seem
to be attracting some folks from the NYC area who have vacation
homes in the vicinity. The field is paid for, and so is our fleet of 3
Twin Astirs, one G-102, a 1-26 and a Pawnee tug. Things could be a
lot worse. It is a beautiful location. The neighbors are friendly, (no
noise complaints) and nobody can kick us out. It's all ours. That's
the main part.

www.NutmegSoaring.org

Don't think that real estate values in Europe are cheap either. They
are very expensive, though a number of clubs have had government
help in acquiring the airports they operate out of. Where there is a
will, there is a way. Sometimes it takes a lot of time and teamwork
to get to the goal though.

RO