Clothes for gliderpilots

I love the idea of specialized soaring clothing but $300 bucks 😄 (plus Europe to USA shipping) for soaring pants is, at least initially, a bit shocking. Most of my "gliding" pants end up with grease on them (yes I wear an apron!). Within a season they are essentially grease spot covered, grungy painter pants. Therefore I am reluctant to wear anything valuable near the glider. The thigh windows in your $300 soaring pants are really nice but I like to be able to write notes and flip thru several pages quickly (checklist or task list for example). Your pants are only for easy viewing of pre inserted material for reading only. Making any changes to that material would require me to open the zipper and get the paper out, flip thru to what I need, the refold and re-insert back into the clear pocket while in flight. I'm not sure that I could ever be neat and organized enough to get everything I need into those two pockets while flying...

Here is what I have been using (similar) and it works well for me. I found a pair of Patagonia "cargo pants" that fit great and were on clearance ($80, shock cord ankles, ventilation zippers, tons of pockets, etc). I sewed in large Velcro pads onto each thigh as well as a set of "belt loops" around each thigh to keep the thigh clips (http://www.sportys.com/pilotShop/product/8782) in place. With this arrangement I can prearrange several things and flip the pages easily. I also have an ipad thigh strap (also sporty's pilot shop) which actually worked great (best actually). My iPad is currently illegal in US contests becuase it is LTE enabled 😞.

Anyway, these pants allow me to have all of my important info handy and I can also write notes easily on a notepad (very important to me). I probably have $100 into these pants including two Sporty's thigh pad straps. You can get great outdoor cargo pants (REI) for under $50 these days. The sewing took less than an hour. I'll post a picture sometime.

Good luck with your company! I think you have a good product but at an extreme price. Even top end sailing pants (bibs) is not even that expensive in the US (Musto, Henry Loyd, Zhick, etc).