Season Passes available from Soaring NV in Minden

On Friday, December 13, 2019 at 6:20:07 PM UTC-5, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Bob Youngblood wrote on 12/13/2019 12:57 PM:

We aim to make your gliding experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible, and encourage any feedback. We’re here to help you soar, and we’re happiest when you’re soaring stress-free.

We must be doing something wrong, our tows are 35 bucks to 2000, no reservation needed. Annual dues 360 bucks, not reservation fee, free help in assembly, beverages are usually free, including beer at the end of the day. No charge for fighter pilot special hot dogs on Saturday and Sunday. Assembled glider in hangar 125 bucks a month, with no charge for outdoor trailer parking. No 15 hour Wonders needed or wanted. Treasure Coast Soaring Club, Vero Beach, Florida. Bob

Are members required to do any work, or can they just show up, fly, eat, drink and
go home? How about week day tows - available?

--
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

Just eat drink, and enjoy. Bring beer for the cooler if you like.

On Thursday, December 12, 2019 at 7:30:14 PM UTC-5, wrote:
https://soaringnv.com/

You can pay for tows on a per-tow basis, which will be billed on a per-minute basis, or you can purchase a VIP Season Tow Pass. Here are the details for both options:
Paying on a Per-Tow Basis
• Glider pilots are responsible for having their glider at the staging area, and for the hook-up and launch of their glider, unless line help is requested (see below). • A tow reservation is required ◦ A reservations will cost $25 ▪ Reservation is non-refundable ▪ Reservation cost DOES count toward the final cost of the tow ◦ Reservations can be made via e-mail: ◦ Reservations can be made via phone: 775-782-9595 ◦ Reservations can be rescheduled with sufficient advance notice • Line help can be requested, for an additional cost of $25. ◦ Please specify if you do or don’t want line help when you make your tow reservation. ◦ Line help covers transport of glider to the staging area for launch and from the staging area upon return, hook up, launch, and other staging activities. • Tows will be billed at a cost of $7.40 per minute ◦ Time starts when the tow plane and glider start rolling. ◦ Time stops as soon as the tow plane touch down for landing.
VIP Annual Tow Pass
• The VIP Annual Tow Pass is $4200 for the entire year. ◦ The pass can be purchased at any point during the year. ◦ If the pass is purchased in advance, during the months of November and December, for the coming year, the price will be discounted to $3750. • A tow reservation is required ◦ Season pass holders DO NOT pay a reservation fee
◦ Reservations can be made via e-mail: ◦ Reservations can be made via phone: 775-782-9595 ◦ Reservations can be rescheduled with sufficient advance notice • VIP Annual Tow Pass holders enjoy the following benefits at no additional cost: ◦ Unlimited tows ◦ Unlimited oxygen fills ◦ Unlimited land out retrievals ◦ Line service ◦ Wave Camp tickets
We aim to make your gliding experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible, and encourage any feedback. We’re here to help you soar, and we’re happiest when you’re soaring stress-free.

I would say this is very nice service, especially for folks who go to Nevada from far and away and do not have ground crew. I would be very happy with such service. I can get towed to the flightline, get hooked up and towed for $115. How much hiring a crew cost? Much more, anyway. I would be glad to use the service.

I am not associated with Soaring NV other than as a customer. My post was meant to inform pilots who may be coming to Minden to fly next season, or move here. Last year Soaring NV only had one towplane resulting in significant launch delays. Next season they will have 3 towplanes. I don't know who Uneekc is but local pilots would welcome your towplane too if you are serious.
I have been considering a JS2 SL, but I will purchase the season pass, fly twice as much, get free aero retrieves and more, for 10 years at much less than the price of a self launcher engine. But SL's are great too!
Thanks to all of the folks who posted a positive message. Merry Christmas to all!
Jim Lee

Hi Jim
Don’t get me wrong, thanks for posting the info, and as I previously mentioned, for the guy who is gonna do a concentrated year of Minden xc flying that yearly deal IS a good one with the inclusion of the unlimited tow-homes. Its only the individual tow charges and the $25 ground help fee that are problematic to me. I think a better business model would be to provide unlimited ground help if needed at no charge and a standard rate for tows, teaching their tow pilots how to tow and get down with maximum efficiency. Thats where money is made and lossed.
My rants about the “good-ole-days� at Minden are just that, namely reminicence of days and attitudes long gone, at least as far as Minden is concerned. It changed from being a friendly/free relatively inexpensive place to fly into a restrictive rich man only playground many years back, long before the present commercial operators came to the scene. I was just hoping things would begin to chance back to more like it used to be, but I just don’t see that happening.
As for this next year, I will be going a much different route for great basin flying. I will be coming up there to fly out of various other locations using 2,000 ft of spectra for auto tows. There are dry lake/dirt road areas I know of which provide good high auto tow capability in locations more advantageous for early starts on long xc flights of low performance machines.

Namely, trying to break the present 1-26 straight out record. A flight of over 435 miles is needed.

I will be coming up there to fly out of various other locations using 2,000 ft of spectra for auto tows.

Be sure to try a GoPro on each end of the tow rope. Should make some great out back videos.

Stu, I’m flying a 1-26, and attempting to go far which with my handicap in performance means having to average over 50mph, I can’t have any extra drag! lol

There is so much I would like to say but.... keeping it simple, or trying.

You stated that they need to teach their tow pilots how to tow and how to return with maximum efficiency, or something to that effect.

There are maybe 6 tow pilots that tow at Minden (and with the exception of the FNG, whose tow numbers, I have no idea about), the low time person has over 3000 tows with the highest said to be in excess of 12,000. Now, I realize everyone can learn something from everyone, but even you have to admit you have some pretty experienced folks on the other end of that rope. If you know a better way, please let us know. I know we are all happy to learn something new and want to provide the best service we can.

“And that’s all I have to say about that�. Respectfully (and thanks, Forrest Gump)

Forest Gump, I like that line. You might need to reread my post. I am in no way denegrading the quality of any operations tow pilots. My point was, since the price schema is the time from launch to tow plane landing means that if a guy happens to get a tow pilot who loligages his way back down you end up paying alot more for a tow than if you have an efficient tow pilot who has worked contests etc.

A better pricing, if you were gonna charge per minute would be time from launch to release. That would be a fairer way..... says the guy with over 8,000 hours taildragger and over 4,000 tows.... lol

it sounds simple, to ask the towpilot to punch a stopwatch, but there are often more urgent demands on the attention of the towpilot. I regret that sometimes I've realised that I forgot to press the button, with a consequent loss of accurate timing. I fix this by guesswork.