Why is Soaring declining

Bill Daniels wrote:
Eric presents a reasonable picture of the glider market. In fact, I think
the present glider market is about right. There is a market for
state-of-the-art gliders for competition and a flourishing market in used
gliders.

A person of modest means can buy a 20 year old glass glider with spectacular
performance. That 20 year old glider wouldn't be such a bargain on the used
market if some competition pilot hadn't bought it for an astronomical sum
when it was new. We need to stop knocking competition, it creates a market
of really neat used gliders. When I started, if you wanted a high
performance glider, you had to build it. By comparison, this market is
nirvana. The availability and cost of gliders isn't the real problem.

One of the many problems that does need attention is training costs. Rental
and airtow make getting a glider rating cost more than a private power
certificate in many locations. It's also a LOT more hassle to get glider
training because of the short flights and long waits. For anyone interested
in aviation but who hasn't chosen whether to go for soaring or another
aviation related activity, this is a problem. Glider training costs,
particularly the overall hourly rates, just don't look reasonable by
comparison.

Now, I'm NOT suggesting that anyone is overcharging for rentals or air tows.
It costs what is does for very good reasons. It's just that those reasons
are not apparent to the newcomer.

I think it might be a good idea to take a long hard look at the training
"experience" from the students point of view to see if there isn't something
that could be done to make it more attractive. The first thing I would
suggest is to look at winch launch for training.

Bill Daniels

"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
...

Lennie the Lurker wrote:

Almost every sailplane made today is made with the
competitor in mind, and the manufacturers aren't going to listen to
any suggestion that maybe something more pedestrian might sell.

There is some truth to this claim, but it's more complicated than the
manufacturers "not listening". They know their gliders must do well in
competition (at least the major factories), because potential buyers
think this is important, even though the majority of buyers aren't
serious competitors (note that the majority of the German sailplane
production is now motorized).

There are some "second-tier" gliders, like the reintroduction of the
Glasflugel 304, the Russia AC-4, Apis, and Silent; however, any new
glider that isn't a top-of-the-line glider has some serious competition
in the market: used gliders. Glider last a long time, and the
performance improvements have been slow, so a new glider that isn't
better, just cheaper, has to compete with equal performance, even
cheaper used gliders.

This situation is quite different from the hang glider market, where the
gliders wear out much sooner, and the improvements from year to year are
much greater than they are for sailplanes.

and the manufacturers aren't going to listen to
any suggestion that maybe something more pedestrian might sell.

Just join a thread ripping apart the PW5 to see how something "more
pedestrian" might sell. The PW5 actually has sold OK, as did the Russia,
and so that may be why we now have the Apis and Silent (at least in
part). Attitudes are slowly changing, and "moderate" performance is
becoming more acceptable.

The manufacturers would probably build more intermediate gliders if the
sport was growing fast enough to drive up the price of the used gliders,
thus making a new glider of similar performance profitable enough to be
worthwhile.
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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA



Hi Eric

Got to second that. I really can't understand why winch is not used more, it is
cheaper, faster and in some ways safer than aerotow.

There is no comparison in terms of profitability for the club. A good winch is a
license to print money in most clubs, and a fraction of the cost for the pilots.

Even our old lump can throw 30 launches a day to 1500"+ at a cost of under $4
per launch - and make a profit doing it.