I would like to agree with Tom, Ross and Simon. Last season I attended my first comp and flew in the NSW comps at Narromine in club class. Had nothing but support from the old hands and left hooked on comp flying looking forward to this season with Narromine Cup, NSW comps at Keepit and club class nationals at Benalla on the agenda. As an ex hang glider pilot I have found gliding to be an amazing opening of horizons regarding XC flight. There are a lot of HG pilots out there who would jump at this if they knew what a buzz XC in a sailplane is . How do we go forward? Regards. Mark Barnfield.
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of tom claffey Sent: Sunday, 29 August 2010 1:40 PM To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Death of a movement - start of a sport It is great to see Peter and the Caboulture club realise the facts about City/coastal and Country/inland clubs. From what I have seen at Qld Easter and state comps the system is working well, much less so in NSW. It shits me off completely when I hear all this "comp Pilots are dangerous and unfriendly" crap from people who have never been to one in the last 10-20 years. Negativity is destructive, listen to Ross M'clean, Simon Holding etc re their first comp experiences and the help they received, we all like to see new pilots enjoying themselves!. Re any lack of help from NSWGA, anyone going to take on the Marketing Officer for NSW position advertised for last 2 years or only bitch here??? Having just returned from 6 weeks in Europe we don't realise just how good we have it here!! [and not just the weather, GFA/CASA is nothing on EASA!] Happy Flying, Tom --- On Sat, 28/8/10, Peter Stephenson <[email protected]> wrote: From: Peter Stephenson <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Death of a movement - start of a sport To: "Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia." <[email protected]> Received: Saturday, 28 August, 2010, 7:50 PM Great to see posts from Yannick and this from Andrew. My Club Caboolture is like that Sydney Club and has Brisbane to the south and under 3500' CTA and limited XC options. In our training, we refer to cross country in our circuit training (covering the altimeter) and actively send our members out to the inland cross country clubs DDSC, Kingaroy, Boonah and Warwick after training them to go solo and get off daily checks. In addition, I usually organise a week every year for our members at DDSC and so we realise that we are a feeder club. As an instructor, it is really great to see our ex-members at the other clubs so our club is not growing per se but if you include all our ex-members at other clubs, we are! :-) PeterS On 28/08/2010 3:32 PM, Andrew Hallam wrote: > Hi All, > > Interesting discussion, especially since I am one of those new members who is deciding whether or not to continue with gliding. > > Caveat: My (lack of) experience and my personal situation may, or may not, be representative of others making similar decisions. > > I started gliding last year at age 42. I now have 21 hours solo time (10 flights), and have been fortunate to complete flights that meet all Silver C requirements. So far it has been lot of fun, and resulted in a great sense of achievement. From what I understand, I also approached learning to fly gliders a little differently than most. (The journey so far is partly documented at http://www.hallam.id.au/journal/2009/11/3/learning-to-fly-gliders.html.) > > I still have a *lot* to learn. I now need to decide whether to invest the time and money in that learning. That means thinking about what the future looks like if I do continue with gliding, and making a call on the opportunity costs. > > While the idea of flying in competitions is enticing I'm unlikely to be a serious or regular competition pilot due to my age, the limited number of hours I can fly each year, and the cost of a reasonable glider. Therefore, thinking of soaring as a sport might not be realistic, for me. > > The most likely path, for me, seems to be treating soaring as more of a hobby. Flying when I can, setting my own tasks, and maybe posting a few flights on OLC. Competition flying is likely to be an occasional bonus rather than a regular thing. I am wondering if that is going to be enough to keep me interested. > > If I do continue, some of the things I'd like to experience while finishing my Glider Pilot Certificate are: > > - More cross country soaring. Learning by doing via coaching in a dual seater or pair flying with an experienced pilot. > - Graduating to a higher performance single seater (doesn't have to be the latest and greatest, > just good enough to maximise my enjoyment at my skill level). > - Flying in a competition as a passenger in a dual seater. > - More training on all aspects of safety. > - More learning about soaring weather. > > Longer term: > > - Some form of competition/challenge that encourages low hours pilots to improve their skills (safely).* > - Organised flying with pilots of similar experience. > > *Formal badge claims don't really interest me at this point, unless they are needed to convey my level of experience to others. > > As others have said, to the newcomer there appears to be a large nebulous gap between solo and elite competition. Working out what your realistic options are, and therefore what you can get out of soaring, can be difficult. If you don't understand what you can achieve, it is more difficult to commit the time and money to find out. > > Feedback is welcome. > > Andrew > > > > On 27/08/2010, at 11:09 PM, Tim Shirley wrote: > >> Paul has said it all, and Mike B has made similar comments. We need to switch people on to the sport of gliding. Not the grind of doing circuits and going solo, but all the challenges that are available from unpowered soaring flight. Cross-country, wave soaring, competitions, badges, records. The fun stuff. >> >> We are not a low-cost flying training organisation - at least, we are not today. Gliding is a SPORT and should be marketed as such. If we want to give scholarships, we should be looking at the incentive to continue, not just the incentive to start. For example, by paying for early X/C pilots to go to coaching camps or to their first competitions. That's what will hook them. Whereas a few free training flights won't help, because the money runs out before the fun starts. >> >> Being a sport means that the customers we target will be different, and should include other flying disciplines, especially those where there is limited sporting challenge. Long term participation in our sport needs people to have resources, including time and money as well as dedication, enthusiasm and commitment. >> >> When I take a TIF I spend most of the time talking about the possibilities. I chat about the competitions, the long flights people do, the fun of wave flying. Anything to turn them on to the challenge, and away from the impossible question "how much does it cost to learn?". >> >> Yes, we have people who only want to soar gracefully above the airfield for a couple of hours. Yes, we have people who want to restore and fly vintage sailplanes. Yes, we need instructors to train newcomers. And all of that is terrific. But it's not the right marketing pitch - which should be, that this sport is seriously challenging, physically and mentally demanding, and above all, heaps of FUN! >> >> Cheers >> >> Tim >> >> se sono rose, fioriranno > > _______________________________________________ > Aus-soaring mailing list > [email protected] > To check or change subscription details, visit: > http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring > _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.851 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3099 - Release Date: 08/28/10 16:34:00
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