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The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?



 
 
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  #61  
Old March 15th 21, 12:48 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Eric Greenwell[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,939
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

Dan Marotta wrote on 3/14/2021 3:30 PM:
Martin,
If you ever get to Moriarty, I will treat you to all the local beer that you can handle.
Thanks for the history lesson!

Dan
5J

On 3/14/21 11:08 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 10:13:08 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

What an awful situation!* Is that because your club owns the ground?* If
you had a self-launcher you could fly out of a public field using your
own judgment.* Or is it a BGA requirement to submit to such treatment?

BGA rules. I think it makes sense to show you can handle winch launch and
aero tow eventualities as well as spins at the start of the season - and
anyway its always quite a fun day's flying.

Down with George III...

Leave George 3 alone! During its prime (1968-1977) George 3 and Multics
were easily the best mainframe operating systems available.

OTOH, if you're thinking of the English monarch, the whole Boston Tea
Party kerfuffle was more properly blamed on Clive of India and the
British Parliament. In the aftermath of conquering Bengal, Clive was so
greedy in rewarding himself and his friends that he drove the East India
Company (popularly known as John Company) into bankruptcy. At this point
the British Government decided that John Company was too big to fail and,
not having the cash in hand to bail it out, decided that raising American
colonial taxes to the same level as British citizens were paying was a
good way of raising the money needed bail it out.

So, blaming King George III, who wasn't in good physical or mental health
at the time, for the American Revolution is really aiming at the wrong
targets.

BTW Clive, his son and wife were all as bad as each other at grabbing
anything that glittered and wasn't nailed down tight. The son married
into some somewhat impoverished Welsh nobility, thereby getting a title
and Powis Castle, which currently holds Clive's stash of Indian loot,
which I'm told contains more Mughal stuff than any other museum -
including those in India.

If you want to know more, William Dalrymple's "The Anarchy" is an
excellent, though quite a long read about the East India Company which,
at one stage, owned what was probably the biggest private army the world
has ever known.

Anyway, I now return you to the subject of glider flying.O


Oooh, beer in history class! I'd like to at least audit the class - don't need any graduation
credits.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

  #62  
Old March 15th 21, 04:04 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
waremark
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 377
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

On Sunday, 14 March 2021 at 17:08:56 UTC, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 10:13:08 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

What an awful situation! Is that because your club owns the ground? If
you had a self-launcher you could fly out of a public field using your
own judgment. Or is it a BGA requirement to submit to such treatment?

BGA rules. I think it makes sense to show you can handle winch launch and
aero tow eventualities as well as spins at the start of the season - and
anyway its always quite a fun day's flying.

Down with George III...

Leave George 3 alone! During its prime (1968-1977) George 3 and Multics
were easily the best mainframe operating systems available.

OTOH, if you're thinking of the English monarch, the whole Boston Tea
Party kerfuffle was more properly blamed on Clive of India and the
British Parliament. In the aftermath of conquering Bengal, Clive was so
greedy in rewarding himself and his friends that he drove the East India
Company (popularly known as John Company) into bankruptcy. At this point
the British Government decided that John Company was too big to fail and,
not having the cash in hand to bail it out, decided that raising American
colonial taxes to the same level as British citizens were paying was a
good way of raising the money needed bail it out.

So, blaming King George III, who wasn't in good physical or mental health
at the time, for the American Revolution is really aiming at the wrong
targets.

BTW Clive, his son and wife were all as bad as each other at grabbing
anything that glittered and wasn't nailed down tight. The son married
into some somewhat impoverished Welsh nobility, thereby getting a title
and Powis Castle, which currently holds Clive's stash of Indian loot,
which I'm told contains more Mughal stuff than any other museum -
including those in India.

If you want to know more, William Dalrymple's "The Anarchy" is an
excellent, though quite a long read about the East India Company which,
at one stage, owned what was probably the biggest private army the world
has ever known.

Anyway, I now return you to the subject of glider flying.
--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org


Martin, thanks for the history. I think some historians would be more keen to defend Robert Clive - in an era of European colonialism, it was more his achievements - both military and organisational - than any other which resulted in India becoming a British dependency instead of French.

Back to gliding, and the UK system. Under recent rules, licensed pilots are entitled to fly here on their own responsibility. The rules Martin refers to are operated by his club - and a club can refuse to provide a launch. My club does not require annual or other checks for licensed pilots who don't fly club gliders or require winch launches.
  #63  
Old March 15th 21, 04:12 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Jonathan St. Cloud
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,463
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

Perhaps we should "recruit" from youth sailing. It takes "ground work" before and after sailing. If I had a teanage kid, I would love to drop them off for half a day or longer!!
On Sunday, March 14, 2021 at 9:49:52 AM UTC-7, AS wrote:
On Saturday, March 13, 2021 at 7:19:16 PM UTC-5, waremark wrote:
On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 10:33:06 UTC, wrote:
While it may be the case that a volunteer/club model keeps costs low while gliding continues to use 1950's infrastructure and methods, this will not necessarily be the case if/when we begin to adopt alternative technologies at scale.

For a typical winch launch you need as a minimum:
1. A wing runner
2. A signaller
3. A winch driver
4. A recovery driver to fetch the glider when it lands and bring it back to the launch point

None of these are required for self-launching.
Furthermore, turnaround time will be faster with a powered glider in part because it can taxi under its own power.

We need to adopt self-launching with slot booking, as power has been doing since the beginning.

Gliding isn't in decline because it's becoming too expensive. It is in decline because it does not cater to the needs and expectations of modern society. I will say again: fewer people these days are willing to stand around on an airfield for an entire day for perhaps 20 mins in the air.
That's the problem...

My club currently operates 5 tugs and 5 K21's among other aircraft. We offer winch and aerotow launching every day - almost. I have carefully considered the pro's and con's of buying a self-launching K21 and have concluded that it does not make any sense to operate one or two of those alongside a fleet of tugs and pure gliders. Unless we totally change the nature of the operation, we still need members to volunteer for all the other tasks you mention (and many more) and we cannot generate a culture where new members think it is ok to turn up for a booked training slot, enjoy their lesson and go home. We ask students to commit to half a day at the club for their lesson - and if they find that too much then they are never going to become active glider pilots. As it happens, I don't think there is a suitable self-launching glider for the purpose - if you use a touring motor glider it is too much like a power plane, and does not feel like introducing someone to gliding, if you want a self-launching sailplane such as a K21 Mi or a DG1001M - I don't believe any have the reliability and robustness required for a training operation. And most of our current instructors are not qualified to fly them.


Unless we totally change the nature of the operation, we still need members to volunteer for all the other tasks you mention (and many more) and we cannot generate a culture where new members think it is ok to turn up for a booked training slot, enjoy their lesson and go home.

I couldn't agree more! We had a case like this a while ago when a 'helicopter-mom' dropped her son off in the morning because he had an intro-flight that day. She asked me when she could pick him back up again. I told her it would be best if her son calls her in the evening after the equipment has been washed, cleaned, the pajamas put on and then pushed back into the hangar. With a somewhat puzzled look on face, she said 'What?? - my son has to work here? What am I paying the dues for?' In her mind, taking a soaring lesson was akin to booking an hour with the tennis- or golf pro or dropping him off for his Karate lesson. Needless to say that we never saw her or the kid again. It is that culture passed down by parents to their children which is part of the problem! We now spell it out very clearly to any prospect new member what is expected of them if they want to join the club.

Uli
'AS'

  #64  
Old March 15th 21, 04:16 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
waremark
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 377
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

On Sunday, 14 March 2021 at 01:04:39 UTC, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sat, 13 Mar 2021 16:19:14 -0800, waremark wrote:

I have carefully considered the pro's and con's of buying a self-
launching K21 and have concluded that it does not make any sense to
operate one or two of those alongside a fleet of tugs and pure gliders.

Out of pure curiosity, why would you consider using self-launching K-21s
when you have at least one winch?


Our field is much smaller than yours. A typical winch launch height is 1,000 foot, and there is a long ground retrieve from the normal landing area to the launch area. So the winch is productive in terms of numbers of launches from the site if their are several gliders using it and enough people on the ground for efficient operation, but it is not productive for an individual student. We do not use it for trial lessons or introductory flights where we want people to have longer in the air.

For an individual student, a self-launcher which can taxi back to the launch area after landing would enable the sort of booked session typical at a power club - say 2 hours at the airfield for one hour of flying time. For delivery of introductory flights, an individual instructor could quite easily do two 20 minute flights per hour.
  #65  
Old March 15th 21, 04:33 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Dan Marotta
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,601
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

Eric,
It looks like I'll miss you at Rifle this year. Will you still be at
Moriarty on 6/25?

Dan
5J

On 3/14/21 5:48 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Dan Marotta wrote on 3/14/2021 3:30 PM:
Martin,
If you ever get to Moriarty, I will treat you to all the local beer
that you can handle. Thanks for the history lesson!

Dan
5J

On 3/14/21 11:08 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 10:13:08 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

What an awful situation!Â* Is that because your club owns the
ground?Â* If
you had a self-launcher you could fly out of a public field using your
own judgment.Â* Or is it a BGA requirement to submit to such treatment?

BGA rules. I think it makes sense to show you can handle winch launch
and
aero tow eventualities as well as spins at the start of the season - and
anyway its always quite a fun day's flying.

Down with George III...

Leave George 3 alone! During its prime (1968-1977) George 3 and Multics
were easily the best mainframe operating systems available.

OTOH, if you're thinking of the English monarch, the whole Boston Tea
Party kerfuffle was more properly blamed on Clive of India and the
British Parliament. In the aftermath of conquering Bengal, Clive was so
greedy in rewarding himself and his friends that he drove the East India
Company (popularly known as John Company) into bankruptcy. At this point
the British Government decided that John Company was too big to fail
and,
not having the cash in hand to bail it out, decided that raising
American
colonial taxes to the same level as British citizens were paying was a
good way of raising the money needed bail it out.

So, blaming King George III, who wasn't in good physical or mental
health
at the time, for the American Revolution is really aiming at the wrong
targets.

BTW Clive, his son and wife were all as bad as each other at grabbing
anything that glittered and wasn't nailed down tight. The son married
into some somewhat impoverished Welsh nobility, thereby getting a title
and Powis Castle, which currently holds Clive's stash of Indian loot,
which I'm told contains more Mughal stuff than any other museum -
including those in India.

If you want to know more, William Dalrymple's "The Anarchy" is an
excellent, though quite a long read about the East India Company which,
at one stage, owned what was probably the biggest private army the world
has ever known.

Anyway, I now return you to the subject of glider flying.O


Oooh, beer in history class! I'd like to at least audit the class -
don't need any graduation credits.

  #66  
Old March 15th 21, 04:51 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Martin Gregorie[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 699
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

On Mon, 15 Mar 2021 08:04:17 -0700, waremark wrote:

Martin, thanks for the history. I think some historians would be more
keen to defend Robert Clive - in an era of European colonialism, it was
more his achievements - both military and organisational - than any
other which resulted in India becoming a British dependency instead of
French.

Well, that was basically a precis of what William Dalyrimple had to say
on the subject, and I think he's pretty well regarded as an expert on
Indian history. Sure, Clive conquered Bengal, and was certainly quite a
capable operator, if greedy with it, but if the cost of that operation,
along with some rather ill-judged ventures in what is now Indonesia,
hadn't drained John Company's bank reserves then presumably Bengal would
have remained a company preserve along with the rest of the subcontinent
- after all, it was John Company's army that did the deed. It certainly
seems that the company's financial problems led to the British Government
bailing it out and recouping that loss by taking over control of India.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

  #67  
Old March 15th 21, 05:02 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Martin Gregorie[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 699
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

On Mon, 15 Mar 2021 08:16:18 -0700, waremark wrote:

On Sunday, 14 March 2021 at 01:04:39 UTC, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sat, 13 Mar 2021 16:19:14 -0800, waremark wrote:

I have carefully considered the pro's and con's of buying a self-
launching K21 and have concluded that it does not make any sense to
operate one or two of those alongside a fleet of tugs and pure
gliders.

Out of pure curiosity, why would you consider using self-launching
K-21s when you have at least one winch?


Our field is much smaller than yours. A typical winch launch height is
1,000 foot, and there is a long ground retrieve from the normal landing
area to the launch area. So the winch is productive in terms of numbers
of launches from the site if their are several gliders using it and
enough people on the ground for efficient operation, but it is not
productive for an individual student. We do not use it for trial lessons
or introductory flights where we want people to have longer in the air.

For an individual student, a self-launcher which can taxi back to the
launch area after landing would enable the sort of booked session
typical at a power club - say 2 hours at the airfield for one hour of
flying time. For delivery of introductory flights, an individual
instructor could quite easily do two 20 minute flights per hour.


Thanks for that info - I must admit that I tend to think of 1400 ft as a
normal winch launch height because that's what I learnt on, and of course
the width and length of the space behind our usual launch points on 04/22
does make for faster turn-rounds. Its noticeable just how much the launch
rate drops if the wind dictates we operate on 16/34 or 09/27, which are
both much narrower runways.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

  #68  
Old March 15th 21, 05:21 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Martin Gregorie[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 699
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 16:30:47 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

Martin,
If you ever get to Moriarty, I will treat you to all the local beer that
you can handle. Thanks for the history lesson!

Dan, if or when I make it over to the far side of the USA again, I'll
certainly want to visit NM.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

  #69  
Old March 15th 21, 05:27 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 51
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

Let’s not try to pin the blame for the decline of soaring on colonialism in India!

On Monday, March 15, 2021 at 11:51:08 AM UTC-4, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Mon, 15 Mar 2021 08:04:17 -0700, waremark wrote:

Martin, thanks for the history. I think some historians would be more
keen to defend Robert Clive - in an era of European colonialism, it was
more his achievements - both military and organisational - than any
other which resulted in India becoming a British dependency instead of
French.

Well, that was basically a precis of what William Dalyrimple had to say
on the subject, and I think he's pretty well regarded as an expert on
Indian history. Sure, Clive conquered Bengal, and was certainly quite a
capable operator, if greedy with it, but if the cost of that operation,
along with some rather ill-judged ventures in what is now Indonesia,
hadn't drained John Company's bank reserves then presumably Bengal would
have remained a company preserve along with the rest of the subcontinent
- after all, it was John Company's army that did the deed. It certainly
seems that the company's financial problems led to the British Government
bailing it out and recouping that loss by taking over control of India.
--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

  #70  
Old March 15th 21, 05:56 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Douglas Richardson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 19
Default The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

On Monday, March 15, 2021 at 4:27:50 PM UTC, wrote:
Let’s not try to pin the blame for the decline of soaring on colonialism in India!


Colonialism in India and for not executing people who don't pay tax.

Get it right
 




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