Future Club Training Gliders

On Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:48:12 +0000, Ian Cant wrote:

Paul Hanson wrote:

And what of it if today's youth want 'instant gratification'? Should
that not then be the goal for soaring operations to provide? If that is
our reality, than we either need to adapt to it or fade into
irrelevance.

-Paul


That is a very perceptive comment. If instant gratification is the
primary demand from our marketplace, and our primary goal is to expand
our customer base, then we should aim for that instant gratification. A
single long introductrory flight in the highest-performance
self-launcher to be found; with the promise of solo in a couple of days,
private license within a week ?

But perhaps the soul of our sport is that it does NOT provide that kind
of instant gratification, that instead it rewards prolonged effort.

I think you'll find that there's very little, apart from theme-park
rides, computer games, watching movies and reading that provide instant
gratification.

Everything else, from every day activities like riding a bike or driving
a car right the way through to complex and technical sports involves
time, a learning curve and an input of time and effort from the
participant.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Nov 8, 9:48*am, Ian Cant
wrote:
Paul Hanson wrote:

And what of it if today's youth want 'instant gratification'? Should
that not then be the goal for soaring operations to provide? If that
is our reality, than we either need to adapt to it or fade into
irrelevance.

-Paul

That is a very perceptive comment. *If instant gratification is the
primary demand from our marketplace, and our primary goal is to expand our
customer base, then we should aim for that instant gratification. *A single
long introductrory flight in the highest-performance self-launcher to be
found; with the promise of solo in a couple of days, private license
within a week ?

But perhaps the soul of our sport is that it does NOT provide that kind of
instant gratification, that instead it rewards prolonged effort. *Then we
restrict our market to that minority of people with similar tastes. *We
will not grow so big or so fast. *And perhaps people like that are happy
to start out at the bottom of the ladder, learn all the fundamental skills
and work their way to the top. *Blaniks or Schweizers as workhorses, with
just a tantalizing glimpse of slippery glass to keep the long-term goal in
mind, might then be appropriate.

The glider does not matter so much compared to the inherent motivation of
the pilot and the skill and dedication of the instructor.

What we often do lose sight of is the need to offer a ladder with all the
rungs in place. *There must be an affordable - that means cheap - entry
rung, intermediate rungs to gradually increase capabilities, and top rungs
for the most skilled and competitive. *That suggests a mixed fleet.
Perhaps a 2-33 or Blanik, a 1-26 or similar to enjoy solo flight, an
ASK-21 to transition to glass, a Cirrus or Libelle to taste peformance and
a Duo or DG-1000 [possibly self-launching] before the new pilot needs to
buy his personal sailplane of choice.

Just a thought.

Ian

Ian, I'd buy your ladder if the ASK-21 was the bottom rung. The
ASK-21 is actually cheaper in constant dollars than the 2-33 when it
was new.

Don't confuse "cheap" with "cheapest old crap available" If we had
always insisted on "cheapest available" as the first rung, we'd still
be training in primary gliders.

Your ladder has been in effect for a long time now. You just have to
look Frank's FAA chart to see how it's working out.

On Nov 8, 3:18*pm, toad wrote:
I think that it is certainly true that there are some number of people
that would start and continue soaring even with the most outdated
equipment, but there would be more people if the equipment and
operation were more modern and more exciting.

The question is how large is the difference, and would it pay for the
additional cost.

It doesn't need to be very new.

My experience is that if you sit a brand new DG1000 (in 18m config, so
no swoopy tips and winglets) next to a well-maintained late 70's Twin
Astir or Janus then most visitors to the airfield can't distinguish
between them.

Its been said by myself and a couple of others in this thread, but let
me try to rephrase it:

Those of you saying "well it worked for me" are missing the point.
YOU are on the inside, looking out. YOU are one of the rare people
who overcame the obstacles and pitfalls in the current system of
enciting and training new glider pilots. You are NOT one of the
millions of people who have no idea what a sailplane is, or how it
works, or haven't ever given much thought to aviation.

If we're only attracting people who are already interested in flying
gliders, then we're not doing any real recruiting at all; and we
certainly will never grow the sport.

--Noel

On Nov 8, 7:09*am, Frank Whiteley wrote:

Here are the FAA numbers of all glider ratings, abinitio and add-ons

http://www.soaringchapters.org/world_report/


Whatever we did in 1996, we should do it again. Can anyone explain the
spike upward in glider ratings?

9B

At 13:43 08 November 2010, Tony wrote:

I'm pretty sure there is no or very little performance hit for flying
the 1-26 open cockpit. My old club had one, it was a blast but it got
cold at cloudbase.

At one of the 1-26 Championship contests within recent memory, there was
an effort to get as many competitors as possible flying with the Sport
Canopy. As I recall (I wasn't there, I've only been to two of the
Championships) there were six or seven 1-26s competing with open
cockpits.

Jim Beckman

At 21:24 08 November 2010, Andy wrote:

Whatever we did in 1996, we should do it again. Can anyone explain the
spike upward in glider ratings?

Doesn't this curve track the general state of the economy, to some
extent? Think back to the late 90s - the dot-com bubble hadn't burst
yet, and real estate values were still going only upwards, and would never
go in the other direction. People had money to spend on optional
activities.

Or maybe not.

Jim Beckman

At 15:40 08 November 2010, sisu1a wrote:

And what of it if today's youth want 'instant gratification'? Should
that not then be the goal for soaring operations to provide? If that
is our reality, than we either need to adapt to it or fade into
irrelevance.

Isn't that a fair working definition of a dilettante? Are those really
the people that we want to attract into our sport? On the other hand, it
is most certainly the folks that the commercial ride operations want to
attract.

I notice that when a 2-32 is available as a ride ship, it gets a lot of
use. And it's always sort of entertaining to see how they can pack two
folks into the back seat.

Jim Beckman

On Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:16:11 -0800, noel.wade wrote:

Its been said by myself and a couple of others in this thread, but let
me try to rephrase it:

Those of you saying "well it worked for me" are missing the point. YOU
are on the inside, looking out.

That's not what Bruce is saying. Look back at his comment. I agree with
him too: on Saturday we had a trail flighter and some starting student
pilots out and were using an ASK-21, a G.103 Acro II with out Puchacz
visible in the hangar. The visitors and students really didn't
distinguish between the three two-seaters, even one Polish guy who knows
his power planes well enough to know what a Wilga is.

I think Bruce is right: if a two-seater has a composite airframe, is
painted white, and is well-maintained even a Puchacz and an ASK-21 are
similar enough that that anybody who isn't 'one of us' won't make
distinctions between them.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Whatever we did in 1996, we should do it again. Can anyone explain the
spike upward in glider ratings?

9B

The years 1992-2000 saw a huge increase in discretionary spending by
the American population as the stock market soared. Soaring was a
beneficiary of this spending but certainly didn't do anything to
promote it.

2C