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

Thnat's not very far off a description of about 25% of my job as Senior
National Coach for the British Gliding Association in the late 80's and
90's. The training weeks weren't linked to competitions (apart from the
Junior National Championships) but run a various clubs around the country.
Easier in the UK, everywhere is within a day's drive.

At 17:06 13 August 2014, Robin Clark wrote:

What if America's national training center for soaring was mobile?

A two-place,self-launching sailplane towed by a motor home driven by the
SS=
A's chief of training=20
could show up a week before a regional contest. The instructor would
conduc=
t seminars, take students aloft and encourage others to follow in their
own=
planes. Other times, clubs could pool interested members to bring SSA
trai=
ning to town. It might be popular enough to require bidding with sites
brin=
ging the most paying students getting the trainer first.=20

The chief training officer could write a column for Soaring magazine,
have
=
winter chores in the offices at Hobbs, help put on the convention and
other=
national events.

The project would be partially self-funding, but mostly supported through
t=
he SSA with the most subsidy aimed at the instructor community, because
we
=
want our instructors to convey excitement about cross country flying.
Some
=
sailplane manufacturer would get the benefit of a top-of-the-line product
b=
eing demonstrated across the country.
Robin Clark

Great idea. Where do I apply for this job? ;-)

On Wednesday, August 13, 2014 7:06:47 PM UTC+2, Robin Clark wrote:

What if America's national training center for soaring was mobile?

A two-place,self-launching sailplane towed by a motor home driven by the SSA's chief of training

could show up a week before a regional contest. The instructor would conduct seminars, take students aloft and encourage others to follow in their own planes. Other times, clubs could pool interested members to bring SSA training to town. It might be popular enough to require bidding with sites bringing the most paying students getting the trainer first.

The chief training officer could write a column for Soaring magazine, have winter chores in the offices at Hobbs, help put on the convention and other national events.

The project would be partially self-funding, but mostly supported through the SSA with the most subsidy aimed at the instructor community, because we want our instructors to convey excitement about cross country flying. Some sailplane manufacturer would get the benefit of a top-of-the-line product being demonstrated across the country.

Robin Clark


Robin,

The more I think about your idea, the more I like it. I strongly agree that the key to getting more cross-country pilots is to get instructors to convey that excitement to their students early. Many instructors haven't ever flown cross-country themselves, so they don't ever share it with their students. If we could get those instructors into high-performance two-seaters and fly some nice tasks with experienced cross-country pilots, some are bound to get hooked.

One way it could work:

1. Find experienced cross-country pilots with access to high-performance two-place gliders, either privately-owned or club-owned, who are willing to volunteer their time.

2. Find the flight instructors who are current and active, but who do not fly cross-country.

3. Have the volunteer cross-country pilots travel with the gliders to the clubs of the instructors, so that the instructors could experience cross-country from their home fields (note: insurance shouldn't be an issue with the glider being insured through the pilot and the tow insured through the instructor).

4. Then, encourage those instructors to fly cross-country with both students during training and with rated pilots during flight reviews.

If we had enough volunteers, no single volunteer would have to travel very far to get all of the instructors this crucial experience. The potential of this is exponential.

Chris Fleming

What do people think about an organized attempt to recruit new soaring pilots from the ranks of professional pilots that are facing mandatory retirement?

On 2014-08-16 10:14:00 +0000, Fox Two said:

The more I think about your idea, the more I like it. I strongly agree
that the key to getting more cross-country pilots is to get instructors
to convey that excitement to their students early. Many instructors
haven't ever flown cross-country themselves, so they don't ever share
it with their students. If we could get those instructors into
high-performance two-seaters and fly some nice tasks with experienced
cross-country pilots, some are bound to get hooked.One way it could
work:

I don't own a glider and have never done much "real" cross country.
I've hired the club PW5 and taken it to comps and done 200-250 km
thermal tasks (even won a day once).

Landouts with rides or students screw up the bookings for the rest of
the day, so I try not to cut it too fine, and certainly not NEED to
find a thermal to get home. But 3000 or 3500 ft 20 or 30 km from the
field *feels* like cross country to the inexperienced, even though you
should only use half or two thirds of the height getting back. You
can't see the airfield. You can't even see the town the airfield is in.
Even in flat land. In fact, the field is often hidden by ridges that
you have to cross on the way back.

It's a very powerful thing to tell the student to head for a 1500 ft
ridge 10 or 15 km away that looks to them to be just as high as you
are, and as you get closer the airfield 5 km beyond it is slowly
revealed.

Of course we're using (short wing, fixed gear) DG1000s for all rides
and training, but frankly the retractable Grob twins we had before them
were almost as good if you kept the speed down. The main benefit of the
DG (besides the better handling and better CofG control and infinitly
better instructor comfort) is that it only takes a few hundred feet
above best L/D glideslope to pump the MacCready setting up and romp
home at 80 - 100 knots.

W dniu piątek, 8 sierpnia 2014 19:14:02 UTC+2 użytkownik Fox Two napisał:
There have been several threads on RAS recently about the disappointing state of our sport in the USA: a shrinking membership, few cross-country pilots, fewer contest pilots, and no world champions. If we're going to reverse these trends, we need more than contest rule tweaking and membership drive gimmicks. We need to make our sport exciting so that we don't just attract new members but, more importantly, keep the ones that we already have.



Our sport is about soaring long distances at fast speeds or performing energy-conserving aerobatics. Of course there are also the antique enthusiasts and those who enjoy simply boring holes in the sky above the airfield - but we sell the sex. We lose potential new members when they see the Schweizer 2-33, we lose existing members when there's nothing better to fly than a Grob 103, and we lose even more due to boredom because cross-country training is a rare luxury, and inexperienced pilots are reluctant to venture away from the nest alone. The problems of our sport all originate at the club level - and it will be up to the clubs to fix them. Our clubs need to offer high-performance gliders and training that goes beyond the FAA's Practical Test Standards.



The Europeans dominate this sport for the same reason the US military dominates the battlefield: they spend more money and train more than anybody else. There are national soaring centers to teach the teachers so they in turn can offer the highest-quality training to their club's members. With the assistance of their national organizations, European clubs blaze a clear path from debutant to the diamond badge, with training at every step of the way. Unfortunately, the European model won't work in the USA (something to do with our distrust of socialism), but we can build our own model of success based on theirs.



THINK BIG: Imagine a 'United States National Soaring Center.' Let's put it where even the Europeans would be envious: Minden. Employ professional instructors with state-of-the-art sailplanes teaching our clubs' instructors, offering year-round cross-country and mountain-wave camps, and coaching the US Teams. A pipe dream you say? It would be expensive for sure - but it wouldn't be impossible.



The SSA is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, which means among other things, that it is able to receive tax-deductible donations. And it does. For example, in 2011 the SSA received a $1 million cash donation. Would $1 million pay for the National Soaring Center? No. But the SSA could use some of that money to get ALL of the clubs 501(c)3 tax status. A team of tax professionals, paid for by the SSA, could work with the clubs to restructure each club so that they could receive tax-deductible donations. Every club member would immediately benefit: club dues, for example, can be tax deductible. Few club members would object to paying higher dues if they were tax deductible, and some club members would love to make tax-deductible donations to the club. I would much rather give a thousand bucks to my club than to Uncle Sam! This would allow the clubs to finally leave the 1960's and get some gliders that aren't 50 years old. High-performance gliders would attract and retain more members, paying even more dues. Eventually, there would be enough money for the National Soaring Center in Minden.



It's not a sexy solution, but we would have a growing membership, more cross-country pilots and competitors, and maybe even a world champion.



Chris Fleming

Hi, I am writing on behalf of Polish KSS (Karkonosze Soaring Society), a non-profit organization of seasoned pilots, who believe, that teaching less experienced in an orderly way brings more fruits that letting them alone to discover rules of soaring the way, Lilienthal did. Time consuming, frustrating and at the end, non-efficient.
Karkonosze is the chain of mountains on Polish-Czech border, where unique thermal and wave conditions permit for nearly year-round soaring activity.
We have been watching this thread as it contains many elements
relevant to all national soaring communities.

In short, the Polish soaring community believes that the model of our
(KSS) activity had substantially invigorated gliding scene in Poland,
with all subsequent benefits (increased participation, publicity,
training, increased flight hours within community etc). All this had
been done without interference with the existing structures and
without substantial monetary investment, basically by using existing
potential and underutilized resources. This is why we post in this
thread.

To be clear, we do not make any claims to "own" any successes of
Polish competition glider pilots, who seem to be on the roll recently.
Bulk of our activity is below that level, and we are active only last
couple of years. There are other established structures here which
could make such claims, if anyone could.

Gliding in Poland is (roughly) based on local Aero Clubs
(self-financing) associated in central Polish Aero Club (minimal state
donations, majority financing by associate clubs) and two nationwide
gliding schools (plains and mountain) financed from within that
community. Financial situation is probably similar to what is in the
US, with differences in income levels in Poland vs US at one side and
legacy of cheap, usually exclusive leases on big grass airfields at
the other side.

Typical route for someone in gliding is taking a basic course at some
local club (about $1700 with first 10 solos), then training for
licence (about the same cost), then training individually for XC, then
competition participation. With attrition/delays at each stage as was
discussed in this thread.

First two stages of training are standardized nationwide (in the
main). Training is still based on old wooden ships (SZD-9, SZD-30)
with some glass whenever possible or necessary (aerobatics). Much
depends on how financially savvy a given club is. Some clubs gather
large fleets of cheap ($3k) SZD-30, some clubs go for more expensive
and less numerous glass. Clubs have usually several SZD-48s, which go
for "high performance" here. Ships build after 1990 are rare (unless
privately owned by club members or at national center school).

Training works well locally at the basic level (till first 10 solos).
It is usually organized in groups (10 is typical, but 40 may happen)
and for short intense periods - about 6 flying days whole, contiguous
if possible. This can be done as weather impact is moderate (training
is circuit patterns around sunset and sunrise, short small showers and/or
low - 1200' - cloudbase are tolerated). Clubs mostly have cheap local
accommodations (campsites and showers, dormitories, diner type bars).

The problems start after solo for reasons discussed in this thread. At
any given time, at each airfield there are few people for further
training. Due to naturally smaller group being interested, weather
uncertainties (thermals needed!) etc. This leads to inefficiencies and
for some, disillusions. This is even more problem at XC training
level. In reality, people after license are left to themselves.

Here is where the concept introduced by KSS seem to change things. KSS
is just an animator group, with minimal resources (couple of gliders).
What we do is we organize, throughout the year, a week or 2 weeks long
training camps based at various airfields, in Poland and abroad. Camps
are usually targeted at XC training level, but many are accessible for
student-pilots (after solo, before license). The elements a
- use the infrastructure of some local club, augmented for the event (towplanes)
- use local club gliders but ask all participants to bring ships from
their clubs if possible
- invite (volunteer) instructors from all over the country, in
addition to local folks.
- make sure several people with considerable competition experience
are present and participate very actively

Typical attendance is 30-40 plus about 5 instructors. Usually there is
someone with world level competition experience, multiple people with
national level competition experience. The day is organized in a way
typical for competition (task setting, debriefings, meteo, log
analysis etc). Every day there is some gliding-related lecture,
usually very interactive and centered on XC performance.

Because of instructors and doubleseaters available, there is much of
intensive training, and students may fly tasks they could otherwise
only hear about (e.g. wave).

Because of the group character of the event, there is no problem with
retrieves (well, some pretty long and late night if 70% of pilots land
out :-) )

The fascinating thing is that this worked out with no changes to
existing organisation and no substantial money expenditure.
Admittedly, there is a lot of "sweat equity" put in by the whole FI
community (vacation time etc). It turned out that there is MUCH unused
capacity in many clubs (even at national gliding schools), much good
will and volunteer time at all the local clubs we work with, and much
pent-up demand nationwide (we have people come from as far as
Australia as well). Somehow at most local clubs there were at any
given time 1-2 people who wanted to participate in some form of group
training, and could not have this locally. The lists for the camps
close within hours or days, there is always a waiting list. The
benefits of large regular gatherings are obvious in many aspects.

Each camp is open (and aimed at) to people who would before not
participate in regular competition events, for various reasons. This
really brings down some barriers. But in practice, maybe quarter of
pilots are quite hard-core.

What is important is that local clubs support this idea (ship rental
to their members for the event for example). There is even a feedback
- some clubs organize similar things locally - people who participated
in KSS events got enthusiastic enough to mimic them, on a smaller
scale perhaps.

We would invite you to talk with us about details, and/or come to our
camps (in 2015 we can accept more participants)
to get the feel if this type of activity could be some element
of the US scene as well. For those who would want to come please
contact us early so the details (e.g. license validation) can be taken
care of at reasonable pace.

KSS was involved also in some high-profile things (Sebastian Kawa flew in
Himalaya in the ship a KSS member provided, we broke through into national TV
coverage, some Worlds competitors from outside Poland are training
with us), but the real impact is for the community.

This post should come across as inspirational to all of us interested in
the subject it addresses. Strangely after two days there have been
no responses. I guess we could all be on vacation or flying contests, or even
buried in work but I considered we may not be able to understand the post because it is in Polish:-).

Considering this is a success story I thought a translation might enhance our understanding and spark some enthusiasm.





On Monday, August 18, 2014 5:15:57 AM UTC-4, wrote:

Hi, I am writing on behalf of Polish KSS (Karkonosze Soaring Society), a non-profit
organization of seasoned pilots, who believe, that teaching less experienced in
an orderly way brings more fruits that letting them alone to discover rules of
soaring the way, Lilienthal did. Time consuming, frustrating and at the end, non-efficient.
Karkonosze is the chain of mountains on Polish-Czech border, where unique thermal
and wave conditions permit for nearly year-round soaring activity.
We have been watching this thread as it contains many elements
relevant to all national soaring communities.

TRANSLATION:
Leadership characterized by organized training to a national standard is far superior to students going it alone at their own pace. We think you are experiencing the same problems we and others are attempting to overcome.





In short, the Polish soaring community believes that the model of our
(KSS) activity had substantially invigorated gliding scene in Poland,
with all subsequent benefits (increased participation, publicity,
training, increased flight hours within community etc). All this had
been done without interference with the existing structures and
without substantial monetary investment, basically by using existing
potential and underutilized resources. This is why we post in this
thread.



TRANSLATION:
The strategy we have pursued has been successful. The results include increased participation, publicity, training, increased flight hours for participants. You may wish to try it yourself.



Gliding in Poland is (roughly) based on local Aero Clubs
(self-financing) associated in central Polish Aero Club (minimal state
donations, majority financing by associate clubs) and two nationwide
gliding schools (plains and mountain) financed from within that
community. Financial situation is probably similar to what is in the
US, with differences in income levels in Poland vs US at one side and
legacy of cheap, usually exclusive leases on big grass airfields at
the other side.


TRANSLATION:
Apart from two national soaring sites our situation is not that different from yours.





First two stages of training are standardized nationwide (in the
main). Training is still based on old wooden ships (SZD-9, SZD-30)
with some glass whenever possible or necessary (aerobatics). Much
depends on how financially savvy a given club is. Some clubs gather
large fleets of cheap ($3k) SZD-30, some clubs go for more expensive
and less numerous glass. Clubs have usually several SZD-48s, which go
for "high performance" here. Ships build after 1990 are rare (unless
privately owned by club members or at national center school).



TRANSLATION:
You don't need fancy aeroplanes and infrastructure it will work with your current resources.



Training works well locally at the basic level (till first 10 solos).
It is usually organized in groups (10 is typical, but 40 may happen)
and for short intense periods - about 6 flying days whole, contiguous
if possible. This can be done as weather impact is moderate (training
is circuit patterns around sunset and sunrise, short small showers and/or
low - 1200' - cloudbase are tolerated). Clubs mostly have cheap local
accommodations (campsites and showers, dormitories, diner type bars).



TRANSLATION:
Organized group ab-initio training that takes place over a short intense contiguous period works best. Weather and soaring conditions do not have to be perfect and high altitude launches are not necessary for ab-initio training. Contiguous training does not necessarily mean contiguous days, contiguous weekends accomplishes the same as long as the training is organized in a
course type format where students and instructors commit to be present for
the duration of the training course regardless of weather and soaring conditions.




The problems start after solo for reasons discussed in this thread. At
any given time, at each airfield there are few people for further
training. Due to naturally smaller group being interested, weather
uncertainties (thermals needed!) etc. This leads to inefficiencies and
for some, disillusions. This is even more problem at XC training
level. In reality, people after license are left to themselves.

TRANSLATION:
We experience the same problem of providing advanced training as you do.



Here is where the concept introduced by KSS seem to change things. KSS
is just an animator group, with minimal resources (couple of gliders).
What we do is we organize, throughout the year, a week or 2 weeks long
training camps based at various airfields, in Poland and abroad. Camps
are usually targeted at XC training level, but many are accessible for
student-pilots (after solo, before license). The elements a
- use the infrastructure of some local club, augmented for the event (towplanes)
- use local club gliders but ask all participants to bring ships from
their clubs if possible
- invite (volunteer) instructors from all over the country, in
addition to local folks.
- make sure several people with considerable competition experience
are present and participate very actively

Typical attendance is 30-40 plus about 5 instructors. Usually there is
someone with world level competition experience, multiple people with
national level competition experience. The day is organized in a way
typical for competition (task setting, debriefings, meteo, log
analysis etc). Every day there is some gliding-related lecture,
usually very interactive and centered on XC performance.
Because of instructors and doubleseaters available, there is much of
intensive training, and students may fly tasks they could otherwise
only hear about (e.g. wave).

Because of the group character of the event, there is no problem with
retrieves (well, some pretty long and late night if 70% of pilots land
out :-) )



TRANSLATION:
We pool our resources and avoid wasteful one on one training and organize
group training using the resources of multiple locations. The larger group
dynamic overcomes the traditional problems associated with small groups or
one on one training in multiple locations. We have been able to accomplish
as a group what individual clubs were unable to do.



The fascinating thing is that this worked out with no changes to
existing organisation and no substantial money expenditure.



TRANSLATION:
We have been successful despite no new equipment or infrastructure.



Admittedly, there is a lot of "sweat equity" put in by the whole FI
community (vacation time etc). It turned out that there is MUCH unused
capacity in many clubs (even at national gliding schools), much good
will and volunteer time at all the local clubs we work with, and much
pent-up demand nationwide (we have people come from as far as
Australia as well). Somehow at most local clubs there were at any
given time 1-2 people who wanted to participate in some form of group
training, and could not have this locally. The lists for the camps
close within hours or days, there is always a waiting list. The
benefits of large regular gatherings are obvious in many aspects.



TRANSLATION:
Nothing is for free but you can probably access the same type of volunteers
we have been successful in engaging.



Each camp is open (and aimed at) to people who would before not
participate in regular competition events, for various reasons. This
really brings down some barriers. But in practice, maybe quarter of
pilots are quite hard-core.


TRANSLATION:
We have been able to engage a group that individual clubs had difficulty
reaching.



What is important is that local clubs support this idea (ship rental
to their members for the event for example). There is even a feedback
- some clubs organize similar things locally - people who participated
in KSS events got enthusiastic enough to mimic them, on a smaller
scale perhaps.



TRANSLATION:
Clubs that embrace this strategy often enhance the benefits by
adding further programs.



We would invite you to talk with us about details, and/or come to our
camps (in 2015 we can accept more participants)
to get the feel if this type of activity could be some element
of the US scene as well. For those who would want to come please
contact us early so the details (e.g. license validation) can be taken
care of at reasonable pace.



TRANSLATION:
We are willing to share our experiences with you and help you out.



KSS was involved also in some high-profile things (Sebastian Kawa flew in
Himalaya in the ship a KSS member provided, we broke through into national TV
coverage, some Worlds competitors from outside Poland are training
with us), but the real impact is for the community.


TRANSLATION:
Success could bring you publicity and further benefits.

Thanks for sharing your activity plan. These type of low key learn XC camps seem to have success here in the US too. Do you guys have a basic syllabus or outline of your camps? Does anyone here on the forum run camps and what has/has not worked? We should find a place to share this type of information and support each other in making these kinds of efforts.

There has been a lot of good dialog on developing cross country pilots (= private ship owners) with perhaps a small percentage of those becoming competition pilots.
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.
It was stated earlier "Money is not the issue. People have plenty of cash to spend on recreation and discretionary activities".
The facts are quite the opposite. "Americans tend to think of their middle class as being the richest in the world, but it turns out, in terms of wealth, they rank fairly low among major industrialized countries," said Edward Wolff, a New York University economics professor who studies net worth."
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 $301,000 (4th). This number is highly skewed because of the very to ultra rich (Bill Gates types). Disposable income is dandy for the rich, but not so wonderful for the middle class and below.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/news...wealth/?iid=EL
In addition, soaring in the US is not directly funded by our government. As many know, some European countries have varying degrees of government support to reduce their pilot's cost.
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 potential pilot pool of wealthy Americans. That is a much smaller number to work with..
So who are we marketing our sport to? The posts above seem to target middle class (and above) younger adults. With financial and time limitations most young adults deal with, these factors = small numbers. And as we have seen, many new pilots toss in the towel pretty quickly to pursue other activities.
So what do we do to expand our pilot pool? John Cochrane's point of limiting the turnover of current pilots seems to me to be the best method to increase 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 sexy, but workable.

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 (= private ship owners) with perhaps a small percentage of those becoming competition pilots.

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.

It was stated earlier "Money is not the issue. People have plenty of cash to spend on recreation and discretionary activities".

The facts are quite the opposite. "Americans tend to think of their middle class as being the richest in the world, but it turns out, in terms of wealth, they rank fairly low among major industrialized countries," said Edward Wolff, a New York University economics professor who studies net worth."

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 $301,000 (4th). This number is highly skewed because of the very to ultra rich (Bill Gates types). Disposable income is dandy for the rich, but not so wonderful for the middle class and below.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/news...wealth/?iid=EL

In addition, soaring in the US is not directly funded by our government. As many know, some European countries have varying degrees of government support to reduce their pilot's cost.

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 potential pilot pool of wealthy Americans. That is a much smaller number to work with.

So who are we marketing our sport to? The posts above seem to target middle class (and above) younger adults. With financial and time limitations most young adults deal with, these factors = small numbers. And as we have seen, many new pilots toss in the towel pretty quickly to pursue other activities.

So what do we do to expand our pilot pool? John Cochrane's point of limiting the turnover of current pilots seems to me to be the best method to increase 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 sexy, 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 overwhelm our training capacity but it would turn the growth picture around.

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.