A proposal to increase membership, cross-country pilots, competitors,and world champions (USA).

Why must every glider pilot be forced to become a cross country
soaring and racing pilot.

Many see this and say that is not for me I cannot afford that
ship, that time that commitment. YOU simply put then off.

Why not teach and sell the joys of soaring.

Once hooked THEN teach them to expand their horizons.

The more members you get the more will become the XC pilots
of the future, the stalwarts of the club, the instructors and the
backbone of the movement.

A few cheaper to fly club aircraft will give many the pleasure of
soaring flight. A winch launch cuts the cost further......!

As a percentage of national membership how many race and
how many do extended cross country flying yet this is pushed as
the ultimate goal of our sport.

Food for thought



At 03:28 21 August 2014, Bill D wrote:
On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 9:09:31 PM UTC-6, Craig R.
wrote:
There has been a lot of good dialog on developing cross
country pilots (=
=3D private ship owners) with perhaps a small percentage of
those becoming
=
competition pilots.=20
=20
However, when I look at the basics, the outlook is pretty
dismal. To me,
=
the bottom line is lack of personal income for the bulk of
Americans.=20
=20
It was stated earlier "Money is not the issue. People have
plenty of
cash=
to spend on recreation and discretionary activities".=20
=20
The facts are quite the opposite. "Americans tend to think of
their
middl=
e class as being the richest in the world, but it turns out, in
terms of
we=
alth, they rank fairly low among major industrialized
countries," said
Edwa=
rd Wolff, a New York University economics professor who
studies net
worth."=
=20
=20
Median net worth for middle class Americans is
approximately $45,000. We
=
rank 19th in the world. If you look at all Americans, the
number is
$301,00=
0 (4th). This number is highly skewed because of the very to
ultra rich
(Bi=
ll Gates types). Disposable income is dandy for the rich, but
not so
wonder=
ful for the middle class and below.=20
=20

http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/news/economy/middle-
class-wealth/?iid=3DE=
L
=20
In addition, soaring in the US is not directly funded by our
government.
=
As many know, some European countries have varying
degrees of government
su=
pport to reduce their pilot's cost.=20
=20
So if we can agree that most middle (and poorer) class
Americans won't /
=
can't spend the money necessary to join the ranks of cross
country /
racing=
glider pilots (this is an expensive sport!), we are left with the
potentia=
l pilot pool of wealthy Americans. That is a much smaller
number to work
wi=
th.=20
=20
So who are we marketing our sport to? The posts above
seem to target
midd=
le class (and above) younger adults. With financial and time
limitations
mo=
st young adults deal with, these factors =3D small numbers.
And as we have
=
seen, many new pilots toss in the towel pretty quickly to
pursue other
acti=
vities.=20
=20
So what do we do to expand our pilot pool? John Cochrane's
point of
limit=
ing the turnover of current pilots seems to me to be the best
method to
inc=
rease the number of glider pilots. We keep working the front
end as best
we=
can and pull out all the stops to reduce the shrink. Slow
growth is not
se=
xy, but workable.




If the proposal is to enlist 20% of the population, then class
economics
is=
an issue but we are at most .006% of the population. That's
way too tiny
=
a number to be talking about the general economy. If we
suddenly got
.0003=
% of the population interested in learning to fly gliders, it
would
overwhe=
lm our training capacity but it would turn the growth picture
around. =20

Remember, soaring began in the US during the Great
Depression. All we
need=
is a few thousand new people - and they are out there waiting
to be
found.=
I think the problem is entirely our own pessimism.