Yes, our club is effected by BWS, unfortunately, our club has an even
worse problem, I'd call it Ultralight Syndrome (US). I'll try to tell
the story as best I can from my point of view... Several years ago, the
purchase of an ultralight apparently stopped the financial demise of the
club. Now people can come for their ultralight flight and then just go
home again without getting involved with the club at all - this seems to
be very popular. Our club hoped that the ultralight pilots would go on
to become glider pilots, they even recommended spin training in the
glider before going solo in our Jabiru. I am the only member who
started this way and went on to gliding... Most of the time, once they
finish training, they buy their own ultralight and we don't see them
again... However, some have become very involved in the club, so that
now our membership is mostly ultralight pilots plus older members who
don't fly, with less than a dozen GFA members.
I'd love to see my club purchase one of these older gliders on offer
(hey brand-new would be great but totally impossible for financial
reasons). Being a low income earner I'm very happy to fly a 40+ year
old aircraft for the sake of economy (but I DO enjoy flying older
aircraft), and I'd be more than happy for our club to "upgrade" to
another 30-40 year old aircraft if necessary. Unfortunately, I don't
think our ultralight members would allow the purchase of another glider,
but I will try, and suggest cross-hiring in the short-term, but I'm not
holding my breath - if the Blanik doesn't fly again I fear it will be
the end of gliding at our club.
Kym Z.
On 18/08/2010 8:10 PM, emilis prelgauskas wrote:
Thank you all for making it clear how many second hand 2 seat
sailplanes are available for sale across Australia.
For some this will be enough evidence that options for people parking
Blaniks in the back of hangars exist.
I invite the small section of the sport on this list to contemplate
whether/why -
- such perfectly satisfactory hardware has been unsold for some time
- the people affected by Blanik withdrawal syndrome (BWS) haven't
leapt to those offerings
- what this might reflect on the health of the sport.
I am very pleased to see that the competition scene is healthy and
runs a seeding list because of the potential high entry numbers.
I invite you to contemplate what the sport profile is, where one end
of the spectrum is gang busters, the other end in busters, and you may
like to tell the list what the middle (second hand FRP) looks like.
My review suggests that with lack of resources at the foundation end,
the edifice of the sport is the next in line.
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