The decline of gliding - a worldwide issue?

[Douglas Richardson]

Good morning,

My name is Douglas and I am a glider pilot here in the UK.

I would like to start a friendly discussion about the decline of gliding and whether this is an issue outside of the UK.

Within the UK gliding has been in decline for decades and according to discussion on gliderpilot.net this is down to a few key issues, which I may go into later in the thread if required.

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts on this.

-------------
Douglas

[youngbl...@gmail.com]

Douglas, what we have seen here in the US is no different than your UK experience. yes there has been a decline in soaring. Soaring has become a bit more expensive and young boys and girls seem to be more occupied with cell phones and video games that keep them away from the gliderport. Us here at TCSC have been able to bring new potential pilots to the arena with our youth program. Our program allows for a youth to start at 13 and obtain a glider rating at no cost. During the next two weeks we will once again be sending a youth member for a DPE checkride. This past week we had two more youth members take flights toward their solo and glider ticket.
Covid certainly has made things worse, old and young alike are reluctant to participate in any function that might expose them to a viral infection. Cost of equipment and operation of that equipment has risen yet the soaring community continues to get smaller.

[Douglas Richardson]

Whenever this is discussed in the UK the point is always made that people now, unlike in the 60's, are time poor.
In other words people these days are less willing to spend an entire day at a gliding club for perhaps a 20 min flight.

I agree with the point made here in the UK that the way we "do gliding" is outdated and no longer fit for purpose.
We should be using self-launchers and the SSDR category of single seaters, as well as slot booking, which doesn't work with current infrastructure but will work if done correctly with self-launchers (note the flying crowd have used slot booking for decades).

Any of this ring true in the USofA?

[John Galloway]

John Roake from New Zealand (who runs Gliding International magazine) has published world gliding membership numbers for many years and has been writing authoritatively and campaigning about the worldwide loss of membership for as long.

[Walt Connelly]

I would ask if anyone has thought of "Marketing" their operation?
Things are in decline and yet operations are doing the things they have
always done which in many cases is close to nothing. Unless the target
audience for your facility knows who you are, where you are and what you
can do for them your prospects will be in decline. ( I brought this up
at a facility I once frequented and it fell on deaf ears, among other
things)

While I cannot speak to the conditions in the UK and elsewhere, my
experience with commercial operations in the US shows little being done
to "advertise" their presence. (Clubs are a different story and take a
different approach) I lived 30 miles from a glider port for 35 years an
never knew of its presence, I learned about it by accident. A business
should not depend on a small sign on a secondary highway for much
business.

The "target audience" for a glider operation is in age group 14 to 94
and includes high school students with a desire to learn to fly, general
aviation pilots seeking another challenge and add on to their current
license AND the older pilot who has lost his or her medical but still
wants to fly. SO, what are you doing to make your presence known to
these potential sources of income?

A little advert in "Soaring" magazine is nice but the subscription rate
to this magazine is quite limited and probably in decline as is the
industry. My suggestion would be to selectively advertise in General
Aviation magazines targeting local zip codes (yes, many magazines will
allow you to place your ads based on local zip codes to subscribers and
magazine stands within your geography). I subscribed to "Plane and
Pilot" and "Flying Magazine" among others while I was out of the cockpit
for a couple of decades. I never saw an ad for a glider port although
one did exist locally. This would allow for an awareness among the
general aviation pilot seeking another challenge and the medically
disqualified who wish to get back into the air. And how many medically
DQd pilots know a glider rating doesn't require a medical?

A well managed service operation (and yes a glide port is a service
operation) needs to constantly be aware of its "capacity utilization"
level and its break even point. Your profit is beyond the break even
point.

Of course management must be willing to spend the money to accomplish
this level of communications to the target audience. Nothing ventured,
nothing gained.

When I decided to get a helicopter rating a coupe of years ago I googled
helicopter flight schools locally. NOTHING came up and I found myself
driving and hour or two to investigate such schools when there was one
10 minutes from my house. I too found it by accident and a business
cannot depend on potential customers finding them by accident. They now
advertise on a local TV station quite frequently and have an online
presence. They have a professionally shot video which grabs the eye and
communicates the proper information to the public. They have seen a ROI
which has made it an ongoing activity.

Walt Connelly
Former Tow Pilot
Now Happy Helicopter Pilot




--
Walt Connelly

[son_of_flubber]

The new elephant in the room is the still_to_be_understood ramifications of Covid. For example:

People may retire from soaring rather than make the effort to regain proficiency that they lost from inactivity in 2020.

Students who had their training interrupted in 2020 may have lost all/most of their proficiency. They may not want to start over, and may have found other things to do.

[youngbl...@gmail.com]

COVID still has the population on edge, especially here in Florida where we were once the epicenter. What we have been able to accomplish in just 3 plus years is impressive, new glider pilots , a place to fly, a great group of people and participation from young and old alike. We have had new members joining and buying gliders, refurbished gliders and we are inviting people from all parts of the country to join is this month to enjoy the soaring of the Treasure Coast. Bob

[AS]

On Monday, March 8, 2021 at 5:27:43 PM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:

That may be true, but the decline in SSA membership and overall soaring activity was already ongoing well before the pandemic.
Soaring competes with other less strenuous activities for a finite number of leisure time hours. Why would a 14yo want to hang out at a dusty and remote glider strip with a bunch of old geezers for a season, if they can sit in an a/c'ed room and play a video game, which you can become a master in in a weekend?
Also, gliders don't go 'vroom - vroom', which I was told by a 16yo does not make them exactly 'chick-magnets'.
There are operations in the US which have a thriving youth group - Caesar Creek or Harris Hill for example. The one thing these operations have in common is that they own their facility and have a lot of members.
It's a tough situation soaring in the US is in!

Uli
'AS'

[Martin Gregorie]

Out of sheer curiosity: what's the approximate male:female ratio at those
fields? It would seen that a roughly equal mic might prove attractive to
both sexes.

I have noticed that my (UK) club seems to be attracting rather more women
members now than it did 20 years ago.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

[Frank Whiteley]

Timing is everything and COVID-19 has put many operations on pause. That said, chapter memberships have remained pretty steady as many age out of the sport. The SSA is working on a marketing program, but picking a launch time is a tricky as taking that first launch and staying up. SSA chapters and business members should benefit. First will be a new web site front end. Getting close. Marketing will follow. It will be up to those operations to close the deal. SSA has been trying to help grow CFI-G at the chapter level for a couple of years now. There are plenty of youth scholarships but applications seem a bit slow this year.

Real growth is a grass roots effort or at least an effort when people show up. Post COVID growth of outdoor activities could be an opportunity.

Frank Whiteley

[Patrick (LS6-b EH)]

I wholly reject this foregone conclusion, it makes me so angry!

At the club I fly at (south of Calgary, Alberta) we have experienced a recent resurgence in interest that is converting into students and our students (at least early observations) are sticking with it. There are a few things we are doing that make me feel as though this is sustainable, and replicable.

1 - Promotion/education - our club offers a winter "introduction to soaring", 3-evening seminar series educating interested individuals on the nuts and bolts of soaring - the practical how and why. This is NOT ground school. Ground school is a tax on interest and should be levied only on those who are sufficiently interested - it's not a great way to recruit people to the sport. It's necessary once convinced of the value of pursuing the sport, but not required to convert on passing interest. Our goal is to teach individuals about the basic theory of flight, specific site operations, patterns, and soaring meteorology, plus some XC storytelling to make them drool. They should be aware of basic fundamentals and safe when they show up at the field.

2 - Recruiting - we have a fixed price, set number of tow training package we call "Objective Oriented Training" and limit our student intake to 10 (membership of about 70) per year. If these students don't complete all the flights (40 - 25 limited to 30 minutes depending on the time of year they join) then they are unlikely to achieve an outcome, unlikely to return, and 'high margin' since they pre-paid for flights they chose not to use. If the student flies through the flights they are more likely to achieve an outcome, and more likely to return (see step 3). Coming into 2021 we have 25 people on our waiting list and expect 6 of 8 students from 2020 to return, but as members not students.

3 - Retention - gliding is an activity, soaring is a sport, and it's defined by task flying. We created the Proving Grounds (soaringtasks.com) at our club and myself and some friends have scaled it into a product that's now supported by the Soaring Association of Canada, Soaring Society of America and 3 forward-thinking clubs in the Netherlands. The platform introduces the concept of task flying, and the tools required to do this starting with a short task around the airfield that a time building pilot can attempt before requiring approval for a medium (60miles) task that takes them outside of final glide. Finally, a large task (90sm) that will require skill to complete and in doing so should have developed a safe XC pilot. IGC traces are emailed to a club bot for scoring (average speed) and times are ranked on magnetic whiteboard slips, organized from fastest to slowest on beautiful trophy boards in the clubhouse.

Here is where the 'old guard' needs to accept that the "up and comers" are interested in the sport of soaring, not the activity of gliding. We need to reconcile what that means and have the humility to put down the Volkslogger and take a lesson from the teenager with XCSoar - or at least not dismiss their enthusiasm and interest.

4 - Promotion/advertising - I personally always preach "tell our story" and at our club we do this to service various audiences. We share professional content to our tiny LinkedIn audience, we share photos and videos on Instagram (@glidecunim) to the international gliding audience (so our analytics tell us), and cross-post those to our Facebook page (fb.me/glidecunim) that is a similar-sized audience, but predominantly 'local'. We also produce a weekly newsletter during the flying season that is very formulaic but widely celebrated for the especially interested called 'Turnpoints' (https://mailchi.mp/97ee50b8eb17/turnpoints_signup) with 217 subscribers and a 70+% open rate it's a point of pride for many of us. Keep in mind twice as many people are reading it each week as we have members.

4a - Promotion/advertising - here the Soaring Association of Canada covers 80% of marketing spend up to $1250 ($1000 rebate) that we have historically spent on trying to sell intro flights. In 2020 with none of this promotion being cost-effective, we invested in our physical collateral with new trade show posters and 'rack cards' that share a common back but have 8 different captivating front photos. All printed through Vistaprint for about $800.

We are doing something amazing - generally in the sport, specifically at Cu Nim (cunim.org) and telling this story should be easy. We need to remember rule #1 - know your audience. Look around your club and see if you recognize common traits, cater content to folks like this that might be captivated by the story you have to tell, the things you can tinker on.

5 - Culture - nothing matters more than culture. We use Slack to organize our "doers" and have active conversations that email can't support. This winter things have been pretty quiet until a few folks started getting Condor and now we're as active for posts as we would be during the flying season. Condor and Slack have been a great way to keep our most enthusiastic members connected and with a cornerstone of positive, supportive energy we have established a really terrific "vibe" on the flightline - of people looking to get more from each flight, and doing whatever they can to get into an aircraft and have that flight.

One of the greatest things about soaring, beyond soaring is that the club experience provides a rich social experience, and the opportunity to be USEFUL. I have a theory that people like to be USEFUL - at least those who fit in well at gliding clubs. Like being asked to open a pickle jar - what is that satisfaction? Immediate usefulness.

It's easy to make people feel useful with some basic supportive training, and it's not too hard for the sport to keep making you feel like the king of the world - if you're interested in soaring. If you're interested in gliding, well... you've got a problem.

I am AMAZED by the content coming from Europe, especially the young people.

This should be a golden age of soaring if we'd stop lamenting the certainty of its demise!
- Flight computers are free
- Forecasting borders on cheating
- Ample supply of adequate or better gliders that depreciate slower than inflation
- Sharing platforms - content: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Mailchimp...
- Sharing platforms - traces: WeGlide, Skylines, ... OLC

Hear me talk about this stuff on episode 86 of Soaring the Sky Podcast.

[Douglas Richardson]

The issue of the decline of gliding has been debated to death in the UK and a few key issues have been identified, some of which have already been mentioned in this thread:

1. Ageing population within gliding caused in part by lack of recruitment of youngsters.

2. In the UK the majority (perhaps all?) of gliding operations use the member's club model. Another issue is that by and large the people who have positions on club committees are generally not the best people to enhance the club as they have little/no commercial prowess.

3. 1960's infrastructure: people are no longer willing to spend an entire day on the airfield for a 20 min flight. We need to adopt self-launchers and slot booking.
(there has been some resistance to this in the UK as private owners have realised that if the gliding community move to self-launchers, the value of their glider will diminish).

Of course these issues are interlinked.

[John Galloway]

You on URASB?

[andy l]

On Tuesday, 9 March 2021 at 06:27:21 UTC, Patrick (LS6-b EH) wrote:
> I wholly reject this foregone conclusion, it makes me so angry!
>

> At the club I fly at (south of Calgary, Alberta) we have ...
[snip]

> I am AMAZED by the content coming from Europe, especially the young people.
>

John G seems to have formed the same suspicion as I have.

Half a dozen IDs posting jaded repetition on urasb, some anonymous, possibly the same person talking to himself, and very similar in theme to certain posts above, does not constitute a wide-ranging debate or a consensus of the British gliding movement, and the fact that almost all the other old banter that used to be there has been beaten into submission by these trolls doesn't mean we are cowed by the correctness of the argument.

Our club has within 10 on the number of members compared to the previous year. Covid restrictions obviously bit into the operation last season but there was plenty of instruction and single seater flying by July and August, and we and other clubs are looking forward to re-emerging from lockdown shortly. It even looks mildly soarable right now.

Sometimes it can seem like plenty of older folk are around, but on a midweek day when some are at work and some retired, why not?

I looked at the website of a club in another country, considering a visit as a family member has bought a second home nearby. A breakdown of their membership numbers shows about a third are under 26.

[John Sinclair]

I don’t believe that conventional advertising is cost effective, but a local FBO would make an early tow over crowded highways headed for Lake Tahoe resorts. The ride ship had GLIDER RIDES, displayed on the under side of the wings
Business would always increase almost right away.
JJ.

[Eric Greenwell]

I like what you said, but my understanding is hampered by my definitions of soaring and
gliding, which are fuzzy and overlap a lot. Can you give my your definitions?

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

[Dan Marotta]

The following statement came right off the FAA website:

If you are going to pilot a balloon or glider, you don't need a medical
certificate. All you need to do is write a statement certifying that you
have no medical defect that would make you unable to pilot a balloon or
glider.

So it would appear that if you have lost medical certification, you
can't legally fly a glider. If you never had a medical certificate,
it's up to you to decide. If you think you might fail your next flight
medical exam, consider dropping to Basic Med (USA only).

Dan
5J

[Douglas Richardson]

Your tinfoil hat may be removed.
I am simply trying to get a better picture of the problem across the globe.

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 2:13:16 PM UTC, jpg...@gmail.com wrote:
> You on URASB?

[andy l]

On Tuesday, 9 March 2021 at 09:24:52 UTC, richardson...@gmail.com wrote:

I'm not sure your suggestion is a solution either.

Just like the counterparts elsewhere, you rant about supposed lack of commercial experience (your opinion only), yet you haven't shown signs of much yourself, perhaps with examples that might support this radical theorem of getting rid of some participants to help recruit others.

I'm mystified why you keep going on about a 20 minute flight, and people who don't have time for more.

People have differing levels of motivation experience and their target for a day. Despite your assertion, people at all levels are happy to be there all or most of the day, sometimes just to help friends without gliding themselves. Fly the tug, instruct, early solo, cross-country, workshop, cut the grass, retrieves ...

Our club had only advance booking last year, due to the virus. Half day for two seaters and early single seaters, all day for Discus. One day I had a Discus booked, but the weather never quite tipped me into rigging. A band of lower cloud and slight drizzle came over, but eventually cleared about 3 pm. The CFI was saying he didn't think there was anyone left to fly. I said actually I think _ is still hoping to fly. Well, where is he? He's already on his way down there, to see if _ (an instructor) is still around.

We towed a glider back out to the launch point. There were 8 of us out there, ok not all necessary, just so one person could have 3 winch launch check flights. He'd been out there helping while they flew earlier, and they came back out for him, instead of clearing off home early.

Even at the summit of supposed self-centeredness, international competitions, there are far more people there than just the team pilots, and they don't all leave shortly after the flying is done for the day. It is also a social event. There and all round the world, some of these folk have been friends for years, some just starting.

[Martin Gregorie]

On Tue, 09 Mar 2021 14:35:48 -0800, andy l wrote:

> Even at the summit of supposed self-centeredness, international
> competitions, there are far more people there than just the team pilots,
> and they don't all leave shortly after the flying is done for the day.
> It is also a social event. There and all round the world, some of these
> folk have been friends for years, some just starting.
>

Agreed. Some of the best fun I've had while not actually flying, was
after I'd soloed and converted to the SZD Juniors. There were maybe half
a dozen of us and, as is common at my club, we all being winch launched,
not having yet converted to aero tow. So, it was common the have a gaggle
of Junior pilots in an unofficial queue for the Juniors and so one of our
amusements, if the day was good enough for the Juniors to stay up, was to
see if we could organise the flight line well enough to beat 20 launches
an hour off our two drum winch.

We never managed that: 18/hour wasn't too hard to maintain for an hour or
so, with one of us staying in the cable retrieve truck and another four
helping at the launch point, keeping the launch queue pushed up and
retrieving landing gliders - that is, if none of the instructors waited
until they and their student was at the head of the queue and in the
glider before briefing them - but we never did crack 20/hour. Fun to try,
though.

We had similar fun running rope during competitions, by seeing how fast
we could launch the grid and trying to avoid having a queue of waiting
tugs.

Sadly, now we have a booking system on weekends for pre-solo pilots,
there just aren't enough people at the launch point to play those games.

[Patrick McMahon]

@Eric, I consider gliding a leisure activity, like biking on city trails to get an ice cream.

Soaring is something closer to the Tour de France, or a mountain bike time trial.

Both share a fundamental skill, and you can't race in the Tour de France without being able to take a bike along a city trail to get ice cream.

I agree, a lot of overlap - is a 5h Silver duration flight soaring or gliding?

Floating may be gliding, flying away from home is soaring, task flying to me is a bridge (simplified). Too many clubs are averse to flying away from home and force gliding on their members who are looking for soaring. I empathize with them XC development is rife with risks.

I'm not right, but I don't accept that this sport needs to be in decline, and think that statement should be rebutted at best, or ignored/dismissed.

[John Foster]

I believe the key to reversing this trend is getting more youth involved. I have a dream to start a club at my local airport. However, I am going solo on this, as there is only one other glider pilot in my area. A friend of mine is the director of the local Boy's and Girls Club, a non-profit organization where kids can go after school while parents are still at work, and get help with their homework, or get involved in a number of other activities they offer. I have presented my idea to him of offering some kind of flight training to kids who are interested. It would involve a mix of ground school/theory, as well as practice using Condor 2 with VR goggles, and would be free to the kids. For those kids who are interested, and do well with this, we could then offer and transition them over into flying a real glider and taking real lessons. I believe this could be a tremendous feeder program for young people who are interested.

My trouble though is two-fold:
1. Money. I don't have the funds to purchase a 2-place glider that could be used for training. I'm saving up for something like this, but at this time it is out of the picture.
2. Experience. I'm still a low-hour glider pilot myself. I only have my private rating. I need to build time and experience flying around my local area, and after that I need to get my CFI-G.

I believe that if we can involve more young people, it will also draw parents in with them. And if we can structure it financially to where it is more doable for your low-middle class income family, it could really take off. Yes, people are more busy these days than they used to be, but some of the reason for that is that finances are tougher. And because the cost in general aviation has risen so much in the last 50 yrs or so, young people are writing it off before they even look at it. One estimate I saw was that on average it costs about $10,000 to $15,000 just to get your private pilot's license these days. However, if done carefully, a glider license could be done for under $4,000. However, if clubs are folding, and the only operations left are the commercial ones, then this number goes up dramatically, and becomes prohibitive for all but those born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

[Bob Kuykendall]

On Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 2:06:18 AM UTC-8, richardson...@gmail.com wrote:

> Within the UK gliding has been in decline for decades...

Here in the US, we're seeing the same thing, though I think the primary root cause is a bit different. Here's what I wrote in March 2018, just after returning from the US SSA convention in Reno, where I exhibited a DIY 15m kit sailplane:

*******************************************

At the Soaring Society of America convention, I got several opportunities to use my new metaphor for what's happening in terms of growth: "Working with oxygen regulators the last couple of weeks, I discovered that if you make these tiny little oxygen masks for your canaries, they last slightly longer down in the coal mine. However, when it comes to that, you have to realize that the problem is not with the canaries."

If you want to promote soaring, or any personal aviation sector for that matter, promote unions and support a livable minimum wage. Support progressive taxation and investment in education and infrastructure. Impede what has now become an apocalyptically intense transfer of wealth out of the households of ordinary citizens into the pockets of billionaires. Incarcerate felonious corporations. Execute traitors.

Here's the way of it: When I was a kid I had the time and liberty to engage in all sorts of stupid adventures. I took a week off (fortunately during spring break) for the Minden Wave Camp with $40 in my pocket and a tent just to see the action. I borrowed airplanes various and puttered all around the California landscape. I bummed rides to the Watsonville fly-in. I crewed at dozens of sailplane contests, working the launch line, doing retrieves, doing start and finish marks, and developing turnpoint film. I could do this because I was privileged to have a fairly stable home and a reasonable allowance for meals. There was always a place to fall back to.

Unfortunately, the last three or four decades have eliminated the vast majority of the discretionary wealth that made it possible to do crazy shit for fun. It didn't just disappear, though. It went to the pockets of billionaires and oligarchs who have infiltrated our civic institutions and slowly but surely inhibited their ability to protect citizens from predatory corporate entities.

So please you to not give me this "where there's a will there's a way" bullshit. Because bullshit is what it is. Many if not most starving and homeless people have a will to thrive and prosper. What they don't have is any kind of economic margin or latitude to do much besides survive each day hoping the next is better.

[Mark Mocho]

What a crock of horseshit.

[Bob Kuykendall]

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 7:17:08 PM UTC-8, Mark Mocho wrote:
> What a crock of horseshit.

Mark, I don't know if that's meant for me. But regardless, surely you must understand that it is not a particularly compelling rebuttal.

--Bob K.

[John Foster]

Bob, while I respectfully disagree with your assessment of WHY you feel there has been a drop in the average person's discretionary income, I agree that it has happened. I may not agree with your view on how to fix this either, by "promoting unions and support a livable minimum wage", I do agree that a HUGE factor in the decline in general aviation, in general, is the ratio of the cost of aviation to the average income. Average Joe American, just doesn't seem to have the discretionary income that he used to years ago, and if you don't agree with this, then you are sitting in a bubble, out of touch with the world around you. You can blame it on a shift in priorities, but that is only part of the problem. Soaring, and flying in general, has just become increasingly inaccessible to most Americans in a way it never used to be. How often can a kid hang out at the airport and wash airplanes these days and earn money to pay for flying lessons? Firstly, owners are more likely to wash the plane themselves to save a buck or two. Second, the kid would have to wash an awful lot of planes to be able to pay for flying lessons these days, with the price of gas the way it is, insurance costs that are transferred to the end-consumer, and the overall cost of ownership of an aircraft. Flight instructors charge more for their services these days too.

[Martin Gregorie]

On Tue, 09 Mar 2021 17:12:56 -0800, John Foster wrote:

> I believe the key to reversing this trend is getting more youth
> involved. I have a dream to start a club at my local airport. However,
> I am going solo on this, as there is only one other glider pilot in my
> area. A friend of mine is the director of the local Boy's and Girls
> Club, a non-profit organization where kids can go after school while
> parents are still at work, and get help with their homework, or get
> involved in a number of other activities they offer. I have presented
> my idea to him of offering some kind of flight training to kids who are
> interested.
>

Sounds like a very good idea.

Have to thought about adding model flying to the mix? Here I'm thinking
about free flight models - uncontrolled, so flying them successfully
needs some knowledge of aerodynamics and trimming. Some suitable starter
models are shown on my website here:

https://www.gregorie.org/freeflight/index.html

- I'm thinking primarily of the Easymini catapult glider: the rest of the
topics are more advances and show what yo can do with free flight.

The only fly in this ointment is that the Chinese are currently causing a
world balsa shortage, having bought many of the balsa tree plantations fo
use making wind turbine blades.

[Douglas Richardson]

Interesting reasoning: gliding is in decline because we're not publicly executing people who don't pay tax!

[Mark Mocho]

Mark, I don't know if that's meant for me. But regardless, surely you must understand that it is not a particularly compelling rebuttal.

Yes, it was meant for you. Your argument is not particularly compelling either. I'm surprised you didn't blame the worldwide decline of gliding on Trump. Or is that your next point?

[Walt Connelly]

Dan Marotta;1039944 Wrote:
> The following statement came right off the FAA website:
>
> If you are going to pilot a balloon or glider, you don't need a medical
>
> certificate. All you need to do is write a statement certifying that you
>
> have no medical defect that would make you unable to pilot a balloon or
>
> glider.
>
> So it would appear that if you have lost medical certification, you
> can't legally fly a glider. If you never had a medical certificate,
> it's up to you to decide. If you think you might fail your next flight
>
> medical exam, consider dropping to Basic Med (USA only).
>
> Dan
> 5J
>

> That is one interpretation. As I understood it, to fly a glider you
> need to self certify using the "IAMSAFER" acronym. I know more than one
> airline pilot who has had a myocardial infarction with incapacitation. A
> couple of these pilots are now flying gliders quite well and openly.
>
> Is it a matter of having had a medical, experienced an event they knew
> would cause them to fail the next medical and went right to gliders?
> Seems a bit implausible to me. I've done hundreds of Thallium Stress
> Tests and many of them on pilots who have busted their medical. Lots of
> guys walking around out there with shunts too, an event not involving a
> MI. While scar tissue in the myocardium will always be scar tissue,
> some are able to rehab themselves to a reasonable degree and live a
> normal life. I assure you there are many glider pilots with EKGs which
> would not pass a medical and yet they live and perform adequately. It
> would not be unreasonable for someone in this condition to self certify.
> JMHO.

>
> Walt Connelly
> Former Tow Pilot

> Now Happy Helicopter Pilot.




--
Walt Connelly

[Douglas Richardson]

I think that we have discovered a workable solution between us.

Causes of the decline as identified by ras members:

1. Money
2. Playstations
3. iPhones
4. Lack of proper advertising
5. Fear of dying by catching the virus behind a worldwide pandemic
6. Gliders not having an engine and thus not making a "vroom-vroom" sound
7. People like opening pickle jars

How to combat the decline:

1. Advertising
2. Don't run a ground school because it's boring and unnecessary
3. Nurture a positive culture
4. Publicly execute people who don't pay tax

[R]

[R]

Good LORD...now that is hilarious....love the summary, Richardson.
My small food for thought is back when I started in '73 Soaring was magical as was flying, NASA. Now, seems constant hyper-stimulation from all directions has reduced the amount of time allowed per time slot to do fun RELAXING activities. In other words, people are not willing or have a hard time separating themselves from the stimulation they get all day. To many, flying an aircraft is boring. They lost touch looking for the magic in doing.
So Richardson , add Walking Dead.
R

[Martin Gregorie]

On Thu, 11 Mar 2021 03:28:36 -0800, R wrote:

> To many, flying an aircraft is boring. They lost touch looking for
> the magic in doing.
>

Well, lets face it, flying behind an engine *is* boring compared with
flying a sailplane - just not as boring as driving a car.

I rediscovered that a few years back when I treated myself to a flight in
a DH Tiger Moth: that's a WW2 biplane basic trainer if you're on the left
side of the pond. It was nice to fly, with a similar response to control
inputs as a K13, but the view forward was terrible, despite being in an
open cockpit, thanks to all those wings and engine in front. After 15
minutes or so I started to notice the lack of the stimulation we all get
from constantly sensing what the air is doing.

[AS]

On Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 3:33:23 AM UTC-5, richardson...@gmail.com wrote:

That is a great summary - put a smile on my face; particularly #4 under combatting the decline! ;-)
But on a more serious side: Hobbs - we have a problem!
The first point to combat the decline is understanding the reason why soaring is in decline.
One approach - at least for the US - could be this:
There is a section in the SSA magazine called 'Milestones', where every month, clubs and commercial operations proudly present their members who soloed or obtained advanced ratings, etc.
Someone at the SSA could go back five, seven or even ten years and try to track down these individuals to see if they are still active, i.e. look at the SSA membership roster.
If they still are --> case closed.
If not -- > try to find out why:
- Death (not too far fetched, looking at some of the pictures)?
- Too expensive?
- Lost interest - if so, why?
- Wife was opposed to it?
- Family happened?
- Bought a house? (Much easier and more comfortable to live in one of those than in a glider of equal value!)
- Soloed as youth member and moved out of the area for college/job etc. and couldn't find another club nearby?
- Other?

Uli
'AS'

[Walt Connelly]

'Martin Gregorie[_6_ Wrote:
> ;1040015']On Thu, 11 Mar 2021 03:28:36 -0800, R wrote:
> -

> To many, flying an aircraft is boring. They lost touch looking for
> the magic in doing.

> -

> Well, lets face it, flying behind an engine *is* boring compared with
> flying a sailplane - just not as boring as driving a car.
>
> I rediscovered that a few years back when I treated myself to a flight
> in
> a DH Tiger Moth: that's a WW2 biplane basic trainer if you're on the
> left
> side of the pond. It was nice to fly, with a similar response to control
>
> inputs as a K13, but the view forward was terrible, despite being in an
>
> open cockpit, thanks to all those wings and engine in front. After 15
> minutes or so I started to notice the lack of the stimulation we all get
>
> from constantly sensing what the air is doing.
>
>
> --
> Martin | martin at
> Gregorie | gregorie dot org

If it's the view you seek try a helicopter. Stimulation? Do a full
down autorotation, a 180 autorotation, a steep approach to a confined
area with a confined area departure, recovery from Vortex Ring State.
Nothing compares with the view from a helicopter, NOTHING.

[Frank Whiteley]

Uli,

The AOPA study on student pilots failing to complete of several years ago was telling, mostly lack of instructor/student bonding. Clearly everyone started training with a goal. I did look at recipients of soaring flight scholarships and found that easily 80% were still in aviation, many in soaring, and some had ATPs. I tried to get access to other soaring scholarship recipients (non-SSA) and got a few which were included in the results, but this needs to be revisited with other groups giving soaring opportunities. Bob Wander spoke at an SSA Convention Focus on Clubs Track a few years ago and emphasized the need for instructor/student bonding and the need, if not bonding properly, to help the student find an instructor they could bond with. I guess this speaks to the need under the FAA system of a student working with a single instructor, rather than a rotating pool, to make progress and to succeed. I felt a bit different in the UK where all gliding instructors received centralized training and used a national syllabus, that progress wasn't dependent on flying with the same instructor regularly. However, my observation and impression of US training is that it seems to work best if the student regularly trains with the same CFI-G, which doesn't work with rotating instructor du jour scheduling. Perhaps someone disagrees. I'm not an instructor. What seems to work is what I call the 'dance ticket method', that is, an instructor arranges time, glider, and student, and then make best use of a two-hour training window. This seems to keep the student on track and is the same scheduling method my wife did as a driving instructor for 22 years. Do the same and arrange for a tow pilot if not a scheduled flying day to do finishing work when nearing the check ride. Does this fit with the way a club operates or has 'always done things'? Maybe, maybe not. The instructor then knows he has a student or two or three on any given day. Works best if the instructor is getting compensated and taking the time to 'push' the student. Leaving it up to the student to 'show up' is surely less effective. Need to show interest in the student and their progress.

A few years ago, the FAA quit expiring student pilot licenses. A recent pull of the FAA Ratings database (does not include those who've opted for privacy) includes the following student pilots:
83,191 with expired medicals 2012-2021.
16,804 with no medical dates nor expiries.
6,389 who have medical dates between 022012-082016 but no expiry dates.

There's no filter to know how many were glider students. But I would hate to think 16,804 reflects that. Maybe many are student drone pilot pilots that haven't completed their certification yet so are still listed as student pilots and there are 96,155 remote pilots in the FAA registry.

Anyone want to explore further?

Frank Whiteley

[Jax]

The clubs are in general decline, not just the gliding clubs but all clubs. Nowadays people want to be independent, autonomous, free to do what they want with no obligations, clubs carry obligations.

Often people take on an activity on their own and then join clubs or societies to share their experiences and improve with like minded people. With gliding you need to join and put up with "whatever" before you get onto your activity, so it is not an easy gradual commitment where you get to experience and fall in love with an activity before you have to put up with the 'family'.

We require a club and federation model to maintain the cost of gliding relatively low, that is achieved by extensive use of free volunteer work. If we had to pay at professional rates for what is necessary to commit gliding, the cost would be prohibitive. Standards, management, governance, maintenance, tuition, certification, competitions, towing etc are largely performed by volunteers. Many people are happy to get involved once they are hooked into gliding but again for the newcomer that is not an attractive model.

So Gliding reliance on clubs puts us in a bad position to attract new people.

Should we have a glide now pay later model? Well I am afraid that is already what we do with the volunteer model, I can't imagine asking current pilots to pay on top of the effort they put to attract new pilots.
We need to face the reality that to increase the freedom and independence of the pilots and thereby attract new pilots, gliding will become more expensive and less accessible.

But does the decline of gliding have anything to do with cost? I doubt, chess had a similar decline and it can't be due to the ever rising cost of the chess sets, right? What we need is Netflix to do a sexy serie like The Queen Gambit but about Gliding then Gliding will raise just like chess is now. Good luck with that, 2 minutes in 50 Shades of Grey was as good as we will ever get.

I think it is mostly about image, what is gliding, who is it for, would you want to be one of them? That is something that needs to be worked on at all levels, federations, clubs, individuals. The Clubhouses with 1970's carpet and rules posted on the walls don't really help.


I don't have a solution but I'll venture offering some suggestions, nothing really new nor ground breaking:
- Make it a family friendly activity so the Husband, Wife, Pops or Kid do not have to take time off from the family every time they go gliding. Whatever it takes, put a swimming pool, skatepark, fitness center, coffee shop or whatever at the airfield so it becomes family friendly.
- Make gliding easy to do anywhere, anytime, most clubs are cliquey, someone coming from another club is not trusted, they need to earn their stripes, they needs check rides, often re-certification, redo what they already did. We need standards and trust in them. When you are in holidays and your wife and daughter want to go shopping for the day you should be able to go to the local gliding club to continue your training where you left it, not a day pushing gliders just to be "assessed" at the end of the day because they have never seen you before.
- Most people are honest, when they have fun they want to share it and repay for it. Make them feel useful, let them do things, make them understand the real value of their contribution, be engaged, heard, proud. From day one, not only once they are known, trusted and respected.
- Rather than advertising and discounting gliding, we need to create an image that is appealing. When people know what they want, they know how to use Google and find us.
- I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with playstations and iphones (I have both and glide 120+ hours per year), we don't need need to trigger an EMP over large cities to bring people into gliding. ;)

[Douglas Richardson]

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...


...along with the fact that we're not publicly executing those who choose not to pay tax, of course.

[andy l]

On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 10:33:06 UTC, richardson...@gmail.com 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...
>

People have a range of interests and what they do in gliding, instructing, tugs, local soaring, decent cross countries, and you still haven't really elaborated on why you think this 20 minute flight might be a big ambition for a significant proportion. OK for you if that's what you want, but even some early solos still hope they might get an hour and a bit.

Nobody is stopping you doing this for yourself. Several clubs have some self-launching gliders. If you turn up on the potential best day of the year, and there's a queue of 100+ gliders waiting for the first wispy cu to appear before they all go, some on badge or tecord attempts, nobody will object to you going to the front and do your flight first. If launching is already in progress when you turn up, take your place in the queue, or it might fit in ok to let you go from alongside

Even if a club had 100 gliders that are all self-launching you might still have queue issues if you want to be there only an hour predefined by your booking several days earlier, compared to the people rigging at 8 am on a 750 km day. Note that the keen local soarers and trainees in two seaters aren't excluded on those days, they get their flights too.

On less busy days, it wont be a problem for you. But believe it or not, and perhaps you won't, even from early on, more people want to fly on the nice days. Your suggestions don't seem to take much account of that variability of demand.

[Douglas Richardson]

Regretfully you seem to have misunderstood what has been said.

Nobody is suggesting that standing around on an airfield all day for a 20min flight is an ambition!

The idea is that fewer people would be willing to do this and as such gliding, in its current form, does not satisfy the demands of modern society.

[Per Givskov]

Then all we'll need is the production of a reliable self launch engine that's meant to be used for it.
And since self launchers have been around for decades, why don't we have them? Has anything changed to reason different expectations. Not really.

Gliding is too inexpensive.

[Douglas Richardson]

On Friday, March 12, 2021 at 2:42:23 PM UTC, per.gi...@gmail.com wrote:
> Gliding is too inexpensive.

You're right.
Gliding is declining because punters turn up to clubs wanting a trial lesson and become so disgusted with how cheap it is that they take their business elsewhere.

[andy l]

On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 14:38:06 UTC, richardson...@gmail.com wrote:
> Regretfully you seem to have misunderstood what has been said.
>
> Nobody is suggesting that standing around on an airfield all day for a 20min flight is an ambition!
>
> The idea is that fewer people would be willing to do this and as such gliding, in its current form, does not satisfy the demands of modern society.
>

I can see what you've said, more or less the same each time.

I'm describing the way things are, including that demand varies with the weather, and that except at the peak launching time on the busiest days they don't actually impede your wish to do things your own way, either individually or with a group of similar thinkers.

I just think yours might be a smaller market.

[Douglas Richardson]

I am afraid that I have no idea what your point is, or how it would fit into a discussion about the decline of gliding.
As I see it, everybody has their own individual goals within gliding, yes. I'm just not sure how this is relevant to the discussion.

[Mark Mocho]

OK- my thoughts on gliding's decline:

1-Current pilots are getting older and eventually quitting. It happens in every other sport too, and we can't really do anything about it. Viagra doesn't help in this case.
2-New participants are often discouraged by the seemingly endless process of, first, learning to fly and then learning to soar. Exceptions can be made for either pilots who are transitioning from powered aircraft (although they often keep fumbling around looking for the throttle) or pilots of other soaring aircraft (hang gliders, paragliders) who know how to find and work lift but don't know what to do with their feet. (That was me. "Running" on the rudder pedals on touchdown caused the Instructor in the back to emit loud noises.)
3-Learning can be extremely time consuming and stretch out forever. The Albuquerque Soaring Club only offers instruction one day a week, so if there are multiple students, only one or two flights per lesson might be possible. This means it could take MONTHS before getting to solo. And switching duty Instructors every week doesn't help.
4-Commercial instruction can be tailored to the student's schedule, needs and budget, but is often too expensive for younger participants. Older ones, too, but more discretionary money is generally found with more mature individuals
5-Equipment is expensive. Unless the local club or FBO has a decent fleet, you are stuck with a partnership and/or less desirable aircraft. Once again, time, opportunity and demand seem to conspire to reduce the availability of shared equipment, especially during the best soaring conditions.

I am sure there are many other reasons, but these occurred to me first. I also saw the same things at the end of my 28 years in hang gliding as I was transitioning into gliders. Hang gliding has the same problems.

[2G]

A welcome advancement unavailable when I was learning is instruction using flight simulators such as Condor. Scott Manley has been doing this successfully for years (https://glidercfi.com/author/smanley/).

Tom

[Mark Mocho]

One other possible reason for a decline in new students in the US is the rather common scenario of getting somebody interested in the sport, telling them all about the great cross country flights we make and showing them the modern crop of high-performance aircraft we fly. They get excited about the concept and commit to taking lessons. Then, the club or FBO tries to stick them in a Schweizer 2-33 and they back out. I've known several folks who refused to take lessons in something that looks like Fred Flintstone built it. Fortunately, they went over to the commercial operator and started in a Grob 103. Better, but still not a Duo Discus.

One guy commented that it was a typical "Bait and Switch" ploy. He was laughing, but he was also serious. I totally understood. I did the same thing when i took lessons in 1999 from Sundance Aviation in Moriarty, NM. I refused to get in a 2-33 until the Albuquerque Soaring Club insisted I get checked out in it before I could fly their G-103, an aircraft I had flown 52 times and logged over 40 hours in (including initial training flights and a lot of pattern tows.) So, I am stuck with three flights in the 2-33 in my logbook. I was hoping I could avoid ever sitting in one.

[waremark]

On Friday, 12 March 2021 at 10:33:06 UTC, richardson...@gmail.com 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.

[Martin Gregorie]

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?

I'd expect a well-managed winch operation would give a better launch rate
than self-launching '21s as well as (probably, guessed) a lower operating
cost?

The only improvement I've seen, for landing practise anyway, is that a
good simulator can deliver many more simulated winch launches and
landings per hour than the best winch operation can manage, mainly
because no time is wasted bringing glider and inmates back to the
launchpoint for the next flight. Experience last year has shown me that
this is not necessarily worse training than you get from a launching in a
real K21 on a real winch, BUT, the simulator needs to have a real cockpit
and a big enough projected field of view that you don't notice its edges
while you're flying the simulator.

Weather put paid to my annual flying checks last year before the first
COVID lockdown. When that was lifted I, like many club members, spent a
couple of hours in the simulator with an instructor behind a glass
partition with an intercom. After that I got sent up the winch solo in a
K-21 for a check flight, observed from the ground by the instructor.
Apart from the lack of stalling and spinning checks, this worked pretty
well and I was cleared to fly my Libelle on the next soarable day.

[Douglas Richardson]

Similar problem here in the UK where people are obsessed with telling trial lessons about high-performance gliders and how competitive gliding involves flying hundreds of km faster than an F1 car.
Then they're put in the front of a K13 with an old fuddy duddy.

[andy l]

On Sunday, 14 March 2021 at 08:45:15 UTC, richardson...@gmail.com wrote:
> Similar problem here in the UK where people are obsessed with telling trial lessons about high-performance gliders and how competitive gliding involves flying hundreds of km faster than an F1 car.
> Then they're put in the front of a K13 with an old fuddy duddy.

The UK appatently has 89 AS-K 13s and 82 ASK 21s, of which one is self-launching and not owned by a club. 52 Duo Discus, mostly privately owned of course, but the larger clubs own one or two each.

Many years ago our club had a Janus, for soaring and cross country training, but they didn't spare it rest of the time. It did plenty of evening trial flights. I remember at one time it had 5000 launches and 2000 hours (which made me criticise someone who said it never paid its way)

[Dan Marotta]

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?

In The Colonies, we have our every other year flight review required by
the FAA. The rest is on us to be competent.

Down with George III...

Dan
5J

[Gregg Ballou]

I think it is mostly a time commitment issue. Going soaring is an all day long affair. I don't see a way around that unless you slip in late morning and skip out right after landing. Not that there are any soaring pilots that would do such a thing. Even such abhorrent behavior still would take up a good portion of the day, if such behavior existed.

[AS]

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'

[Mike the Strike]

On Sunday, March 14, 2021 at 9:32:36 AM UTC-7, Gregg Ballou wrote:
> I think it is mostly a time commitment issue. Going soaring is an all day long affair. I don't see a way around that unless you slip in late morning and skip out right after landing. Not that there are any soaring pilots that would do such a thing. Even such abhorrent behavior still would take up a good portion of the day, if such behavior existed.

The club model helps keep soaring costs down and enthusiastic fliers don't mind spending a day at the field. In the 21st century, though, it's a tough model to sell to some of the new generation as their attention span has got shorter and there are many other demands for their time. Just imagine trying to sell a driving school on the same model - you get to push cars around the parking lot for a day and then can practice driving for 20 minutes. With a bit of luck, you'll have your license in a few months!

The 2-33 (aka Gollywomper) may be a good old workhorse but it is hardly attractive to new fliers - a bit like practicing on a model T before you get to sit in a real car!

Mike

[Tango Eight]

The only thing in decline at my club is trailer parking and assembly space.

I used GE to check my memory and put together a photo essay for the club this morning. In Aug 2008, the overhead shows two trailers and four gliders tied out, and I do remember the Feb 2008 annual meeting at which real concern about the future of the club was expressed. Aug 2020 shows 15 trailers (2 or 3 are elsewhere) and 3 gliders tied out. I know of at least two more trailers en route and there is a rumor this morning of a third.

We promote XC. It works.

We train in what was the world's ugliest 2-33, because that's what we have (now with a new interior, thanks Don!). The only guy that complains is one of the back seaters (moi). The students are smart enough to see the GollyWhomper as a stepping stone to better things, including a club owned 304C.

The 304 is the other thing that works: the list of people who crewed for AJ more than once may be short, but the number of pilots who have flown our 304 and have left the sport is shorter still. Most (as in about 9 out of 10) fly the 304, then move whatever parts of their personal heaven and earth need moving to buy a sailplane of their own.

There is nothing we do in our club that you could not do in yours. Boundless enthusiasm does help.

T8

[Martin Gregorie]

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.

[Douglas Richardson]

On Sunday, March 14, 2021 at 4:49:52 PM UTC, AS wrote:
> 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'

We have two options:

1. Moan and bitch about how people don't want to spend their day sat on an airfield, in the hope that society returns to the state it was in during the 1960's.

2. Recognise that the world has moved on and change the way we 'do' our sport in order to stay relevant.

One of those options will lead to further decline while the other will potentially lead to its resurgence.

[andy l]

On Sunday, 14 March 2021 at 16:49:52 UTC, AS wrote:
> 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'

To be fair, some of that attitude exists in any field, not just gliding. I remember my sister organising a kid's party, and remarking how few other parents offered to help. Was it like free babysitting for the afternoon, I asked

[Dan Marotta]

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

[Michael Bamberg]

I just want to share an excerpt from a recent posting on the Hood River Soaring Club's google group, posted by one of the youth members (14 years old):

"Starting this Monday, me and any other youth members, or just club members that want to help, will be taking off and replacing the Mylar strips and wing seals on the L-33 and polishing it in KC’s shop. We got the glider disassembled and in the trailer today and hauled it up to his shop. (If you’re a youth member helping with this project, check with your mentor and ask them if you can count it for work study). If you’re interested in helping with this, email me xxxxx or text me xxxxx and let me know if you’re going to help so I can give you the address and or work out what hours we’re gonna work on it."

I was at the field doing some other work and there were 5 youth members and 3 adult members that were assisting launches and glider movement. The current youth cadre consists of about 12 members, the youngest is 12!

The club has been very active at soliciting youth through the local schools and has a "Work-to-fly" program that has produced many new glider points.

Please checkout their website: https://www.hoodriversoaring.org/

Mike

[Eric Greenwell]

>> 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/motorgliders/publications/download-the-guide-1

[waremark]

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.

[waremark]

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.

[Dan Marotta]

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

Dan
5J

[Martin Gregorie]

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 Gregorie]

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 Gregorie]

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.

[stephen...@sympatico.ca]

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

[Douglas Richardson]

On Monday, March 15, 2021 at 4:27:50 PM UTC, stephen...@sympatico.ca 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 ;)

[ProfJ]

On Thursday, 11 March 2021 at 01:33:23 UTC-7, richardson...@gmail.com wrote:
> I think that we have discovered a workable solution between us.
>
> 4. Publicly execute people who don't pay tax

You say that like it's a bad thing...

Seriously, though, those young folks who you do see promoting the sport are all coming from countries where gliding is heavily subsidized by....wait for it...taxpayer money.

The stunning videos of coastal soaring in South Africa - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OOXvAbCUcc&t=200s&ab_channel=StefanLanger - were, I believe, taken by competitive pilots who were heavily subsidized to spend the NH winter in the south, keeping up their training, and who are to all intents and purposes professional pilots. I'd go so far as to say that if it wasn't for European, and especially German, government support, we'd all still be flying 1-36's.

[Matthew Scutter]

I think you're imagining a level of support far in excess of what there really is. I don't think Stefan is funded by the EU or Germany, nor is he a Sports Soldier. I sent him this thread to comment for himself.
In Germany the "Sports Soldier" program picks 4(?) young glider pilots to glide as part of their military service. In France the national federation is well funded such that they can afford new team gliders and nice facilities, but not salaried pilots. Beyond that, I'm not aware of other European countries with funded teams/pilots beyond the occasional grants to clubs.
I suppose you could say the strong safety nets/social benefits in Europe counts as a subsidy?

[ProfJ]

Thanks for the correction, I thought Stefan was one of the Sports Soldiers. I do think that having four pilots subsidized to fly, pretty much full-time and in a different hemisphere when necessary, is not a trivial level of support. Also, I believe that eg. the gliders were also made available by the Sports Soldier program? I have experienced gliding clubs which were not state-supported, and those which are, and made a massive difference - particularly in provision of good gliders, etc. It might not look like a lot, but everything that removes friction and improves the pilot experience makes a difference in the long run.

[Bob Whelan]

> I have experienced gliding clubs which were
> not state-supported, and those which are, and made a massive difference -
> particularly in provision of good gliders, etc. It might not look like a
> lot, but everything that removes friction and improves the pilot experience
> makes a difference in the long run.

There's an axiom: If you want more of any type of behavior, subsidize it. A
self-evident truth indeed...

Lotsa examples out there, and soaring in Germany, especially, is historical
poster child No. 1. Whether one perceives that as a good thing or a bad thing
or somewhere in-between, is another topic entirely!

[Kevin Brooker]

If we accept the decline of soaring is due to expense in terms of cash and time along with too many other choices of how to spend discretionary time and money and people are choosing otherwise the real question is how do we make the product attractive? Many of the solution suggestions are very good. Many of them come from the perspective of experienced pilots and what is what we might want if starting out. Does the soaring community have any idea what a rank beginner wants? What does a person without any idea of what soaring is besides "It looks neat..." need to stay involved? I don't know I'm just asking.

[Douglas Richardson]

On Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 11:16:45 AM UTC, Kevin Brooker wrote:
> If we accept the decline of soaring is due to expense in terms of cash and time along with too many other choices of how to spend discretionary time and money and people are choosing otherwise the real question is how do we make the product attractive? Many of the solution suggestions are very good. Many of them come from the perspective of experienced pilots and what is what we might want if starting out. Does the soaring community have any idea what a rank beginner wants? What does a person without any idea of what soaring is besides "It looks neat..." need to stay involved? I don't know I'm just asking.

Gliding is not in decline because it has become too expensive. It is in decline because it has failed to adapt to the needs and demands of society as it is today.

"I know what I'm going to do for fun this weekend....I'll spend my Saturday hanging around with 85 year olds, pushing heavy gliders about all day and hopefully I'll get a 20 min flight in return for my efforts".

[Mark Mocho]

> "I know what I'm going to do for fun this weekend....I'll spend my Saturday hanging around with 85 year olds, pushing heavy gliders about all day and hopefully I'll get a 20 min flight in return for my efforts".

Well, that isn't exactly what happens. (85 year olds? Really?)

But it isn't "Well. I know what I'm going to do for fun Saturday. I'll have Mom drive me to the airport and sit around playing with my iPhone while a bunch of old geezers push heavy gliders around and go take a flight after they get it set up for me. That's if there isn't anything better on Tik-Tok or Snapchat. Or if Tiffany doesn't send me a shot of her panties on WhatsApp and I get bored. Or maybe I'll just blow it off and go fly a glider on my computer simulator instead."

[Gregg Ballou]

Soaring's problem is soaring pilots are almost all Boomers and no one wants to be around Boomers.

[Dan Marotta]

Boomer
A slang term for Baby Boomer, often used in a derogatory manner.
I hate boomers, all they do is complain about young people and pretend
like it's not their fault the planet is dying!

I guess I'm a proud Boomer. Since I actually have done and still do
things not involving a small computer appendage.

Dan
5J

[2G]

On Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 7:52:59 AM UTC-7, Gregg Ballou wrote:

> Soaring's problem is soaring pilots are almost all Boomers and no one wants to be around Boomers.

No, Gregg - others just don't want to be around you.

Tom

[Gregg Ballou]

OK Boomer

[AS]

Care to cite the countries in which gliding is heavily subsidized by taxpayer money?
And while you are at it, care to cite the tax codes under which such heavy subsidies are being doled out?
Fair warning: don't mention Germany in your list, because there, it ain't so currently and hasn't been so in the last 40+ years.
I am talking about West-Germany and the now reunified Germany, not 'East-Germany', where the state-run GST (Gesellschaft fuer Sport und Technik), the virtual extension of the HJ ('Asshole with narrow mustache'-Youth) was provided with state money/equipment to seek out talents for their armed forces, etc.!
There is no federal money flowing freely into the coffers of the soaring clubs so they can order the latest glider model every time the ashtray is full! There is a very modest subsidy on the state level by a program called 'Sporthilfe' (Sport Aid) and the club I belonged to would receive maybe 500 Euro per year after filling out reams of applications for it.
All clubs carrying the suffix 'e.V.' in their name are the equivalent of a 501c(3) organizations, which gives them some tax relief. However, matters get really complicated when for instance the club operates its own fuel pump for the tow plane, motor-glider and winch and actually sells fuel to the occasional visiting plane. They have to fork over the sales taxes to their IRS and get audited on that regularly. In addition, clubs are now required to self-certify that their book-keeping is transparent and no money laundry is going on - with an audit about that looming over their heads!
Source of the above: I am related to the person who was the managing director for our club for a very long time and we talked about these matters at length.
So, please get the facts straight before you repeat what your sister's babysitter's third cousin once read on FB!

Uli
'AS'

[mic pilot]

On Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 4:06:18 AM UTC-6, richardson...@gmail.com wrote:
> Good morning,
>
> My name is Douglas and I am a glider pilot here in the UK.
>
> I would like to start a friendly discussion about the decline of gliding and whether this is an issue outside of the UK.
>
> Within the UK gliding has been in decline for decades and according to discussion on gliderpilot.net this is down to a few key issues, which I may go into later in the thread if required.
>
> Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts on this.
>
> -------------
> Douglas

[Tango Whisky]

It is absolutely correct that in Germany, there is no sigificant sponsoring of soaring by the tax payer. The few individuals who are having fun in Worcester every winter are "Sportsoldaten", i.e. members of the German army which has a section of athletes being sponsored by the arny during 12 months. That does not include the procurement of the gliders.
The wealth of German club has been brought on by... the members of those clubs during a well planned growth over decennies. And many of these clubs (like my club in Switzerland) doesn't see any decline. Most of those clubs have gotten rid of their wood & fabric gliders long ago (maybe with the exception of an ASK13 here and there).

In France, there have been quite some subsidies going into soaring, one big chunk has been the supply of free tow planes (MS893) from the air force. Now that these tugs are getting old and need to be replaced (and the air force doesn't run this program anymore), clubs are running into problems.

[Douglas Richardson]

Yes the Germans are subsidising glider pilot training and I think I know why.

When the treaty of Versailles prevented the training of military pilots in Germany following WW1, Germany got around this by forming very many gliding clubs and training pilots so that in WW2 they had people who could fly planes.

During the Brexit campaign, the then prime minister David Cameron warned that Brexit could lead to WW3, and I think he's right!
The Germans are training future pilots to fly k13's in preparation for when they invade Britain.

Somebody tell the CIA!

[Martin Gregorie]

On Wed, 17 Mar 2021 02:04:29 -0700, Tango Whisky wrote:

> In France, there have been quite some subsidies going into soaring, one
> big chunk has been the supply of free tow planes (MS893) from the air
> force. Now that these tugs are getting old and need to be replaced (and
> the air force doesn't run this program anymore), clubs are running into
> problems.
>

I remember the MS893 Rallye - my club had one and a 235hp Pawnee in the
early 2000s, both now replaced by Robins.

Are there any MS 502 tugs still flying in France?

[krasw]

On Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 01:40:43 UTC+2, ProfJ wrote:
>
> Seriously, though, those young folks who you do see promoting the sport are all coming from countries where gliding is heavily subsidized by....wait for it...taxpayer money.

Yes in Europe everything is subsidized or paid by governments. We don't actually work anymore, we just soar if it's not skiing season or beach day. And taxes? Yep, we found out that you can make government pay them instead of individual people.

[Dan Marotta]

;-[)

Nicely put!

Dan
5J

[ProfJ]

So the Sportssoldaten are not subsidized with taxpayer money, they're just paid by the government to fly full time? OK, got it. And the accumulated subsidies that the clubs received don't carry any momentum either (those poor French clubs, soon they're going to have to buy their own tugs!). It's just like all those kids at Harvard, whose parents were also at Harvard, but they're there on merit and their own nickel (from the 'rents). I stand entirely corrected...

[krasw]

On Thursday, 25 March 2021 at 04:09:11 UTC+2, ProfJ wrote:
> > >
> So the Sportssoldaten are not subsidized with taxpayer money, they're just paid by the government to fly full time? OK, got it. And the accumulated subsidies that the clubs received don't carry any momentum either (those poor French clubs, soon they're going to have to buy their own tugs!). It's just like all those kids at Harvard, whose parents were also at Harvard, but they're there on merit and their own nickel (from the 'rents). I stand entirely corrected...

As a resident of one European country (FYI there are many) I too believe the societies here are the best in the world and you have every reason to be jealous of them.

[AS]

On the subject of the 'Sportsoldaten', how is the soaring program of the Air Force Academy in CO funded? By the cadet's parents? By the alumni of the Academy? By a donation box at the local gas-station?
Or what about the Civil Air Patrol (CAP)? They run a glider program and even own a few winches.
If you take just the budget for these programs alone, I bet it eclipses the 'tax-payer subsidy' of soaring clubs in any European country, if it even exists!
Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that these two programs funded by the defense budget shouldn't exist but I think they are worth mentioning when we are discussing publicly funded soaring activities in other countries.

Uli
'AS'

[krasw]

Gliding as a sport has been in steady decline since early 90's, your country's figures may vary a bit, but probably not much. There has been multitude of plausible explanations over decades, such as cost, time, lack of private planes, club planes, availability of airfields, airspace etc.

In my opinion it is just normal cycle of people thinking what they do with there spare time. Hobbies come and go. Flying is not as exciting or interesting as it used to be for "normal people". Did you know that amount of people that read books in their spare time is down by 30% in few decades? Reading, 30%!? Are books or stories too expensive, time consuming or what? No, people probably just want to lie on a sofa staring at their phones instead.

It's time to NOT feel this quilt anymore. Let's just move on, try to keep what we have and have fun flying. Yes we can promote our sport and make sure everyone can get into sport. But to cry ourselves to sleep every night because declining numbers, we have done enough of it.

[Eric Greenwell]

AS wrote on 3/25/2021 5:26 AM:
> On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 10:09:11 PM UTC-4, ProfJ wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 17 March 2021 at 08:53:17 UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
>>> ;-[)
>>>
>>> Nicely put!
>>>
>>> Dan
>>> 5J
>>> On 3/17/21 5:06 AM, krasw wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 01:40:43 UTC+2, ProfJ wrote:
>>>>>

>>>>> Seriously, though, those young folks who you do see promoting the sport are all coming from countries where gliding is heavily subsidized by.....wait for it...taxpayer money.

>>>>
>>>> Yes in Europe everything is subsidized or paid by governments. We don't actually work anymore, we just soar if it's not skiing season or beach day. And taxes? Yep, we found out that you can make government pay them instead of individual people.
>>>>
>> So the Sportssoldaten are not subsidized with taxpayer money, they're just paid by the government to fly full time? OK, got it. And the accumulated subsidies that the clubs received don't carry any momentum either (those poor French clubs, soon they're going to have to buy their own tugs!). It's just like all those kids at Harvard, whose parents were also at Harvard, but they're there on merit and their own nickel (from the 'rents). I stand entirely corrected...
>
> On the subject of the 'Sportsoldaten', how is the soaring program of the Air Force Academy in CO funded? By the cadet's parents? By the alumni of the Academy? By a donation box at the local gas-station?
> Or what about the Civil Air Patrol (CAP)? They run a glider program and even own a few winches.
> If you take just the budget for these programs alone, I bet it eclipses the 'tax-payer subsidy' of soaring clubs in any European country, if it even exists!
> Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that these two programs funded by the defense budget shouldn't exist but I think they are worth mentioning when we are discussing publicly funded soaring activities in other countries.
>

Neither program, Air Force or CAP, is intended to promote soaring. The Air Force "soaring"
program is really a simple gliding operation that can take participants to solo, and like the
similar airplane operation, is intended to introduce cadets to basic airmanship. You have to be
in the Air Force to use the program, so it is definitely not comparable to publicly accessible
soaring centers that get aid from the government.
-
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorgliders/publications/download-the-guide-1

[Mark Mocho]

The USAF Academy's soaring program is also the cheapest initial pilot training in the Air Force.

[AS]

On Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 10:29:39 AM UTC-4, Mark Mocho wrote:
> The USAF Academy's soaring program is also the cheapest initial pilot training in the Air Force.

Eric, Mark

I get that the Academy and CAP require you to join 'the club' and in these cases, the club kindly asks you to wear a uniform. ;-)
The Academy also sponsors their cadet's participation in contests, so it is not all about leadership and basic airmanship.
I agree with Mark that this is the cheapest initial pilot training - not only in the US-Air Force but also with many Air Forces around the world.
My hope is that folks who become exposed to flying glider (soaring or not) though either one of these taxpayer funded programs will one day return to the sport and therefore, I count them as such.

Uli
'AS'

[Eric Greenwell]

Who has come to soaring due to exposure to gliders in USAF or the CAP? Anyone? I'm sure there
must be some, but I'm not aware of any.

--