Good morning all, I thought the thread might be interesting reading. Trouble is that both sides are right to a point and you just gotta love frank discussion!!! On one hand there are the people who remember how it was and the other, people who are in the "now" aspect of gliding. That to me seems to be the biggest issue here. The sport in Australia is now 100 years old and catering for people over a wide range of history and future together gives us this discussion.
To me, both are as viable as each other and can work anyway we want them to work. Think about that. The systems that are in place give us, big clubs, small clubs, and individuals of any persuasion the opportunity to develop anyway we wish. Imagine if the powers that be rigidly set out how a club should operate, what fleet they should have, how members should dress etc just how our sport would be. Clubs are their own worst enemies and the bigger clubs need to be very careful in the next few years to adapt to the new society or they will disappear as well. Tim's comments highlight this. he talks about people with a "bucket list" and the way they are catered for. In my club we also chase the bucketeers through a commercial organisation, however we have had to be very careful in the way we do it so as not to put club members off side. Remember the majority of clubs are volunteer and when mixing volunteer with commercial ideals there is bound to be problems. The way gliding runs at the moment is way out of step with the average persons lifestyle. If the bigger clubs change the way they do gliding then the sport will grow, I firmly believe that. Small clubs are and will continue to be small clubs. The loads on its volunteers becomes even greater in terms of trying to keep the club going and growing. Unfortunately, the future for them isn't as bright. I think the situation with the Blanik has brought it all forward. Reality is that the smaller clubs will also need to introduce a type of professionalism to their clubs in order to attract and keep new members. It can be done, it just needs some lateral thinking. GFA President Phil is partly right in his comments about old gliders. His thoughts echo Terry Cubley, who also went along the line of shiny gliders attract people 20 years ago. I'm not completely taken with this although, if your glider, new or old, looks shaby then you can't expect to attract members. I've seen some glass gliders that have been let go and the way they are treated reflect their condition. I suspect the reason the majority of flying schools use old C 150's is due to the fact that they are good workhorses and are relatively cheap to operate, but they too are facing airworthiness and replacement issues with their older fleet so don't just think it is restricted to us. Operating old gliders in a big club environment is just asking for trouble. The majority of these gliders have done their job and have been replaced with more efficient and in most cases more robust models. You just can't expect a club to operate the older gliders with high utelisation and expect them to perform. There are issues that they are facing,.... we knew what was going to happen. eg the Blanik's and IS-28's. To expect that this wasn't going to be a problem at some time was just putting ones head in the sand and hoping it would go away. We also know wooden gliders wear out and require constant vigil to keep them going. That's why many were replaced when the 20 year surveys were introduced. The costs went sky high. Sure, many have continued to operate but in private hands where many small jobs are done by the owners to keep them operational. My experience with many of those older gliders in private hands is that they probably average somewhere between 5 and 20 flights per year. In a club they could be doing that and more, each day. Dave points to Booker that have 3 x K-13's and love them. I'm sure they do but I think you would find that they do take serious maintenance and that's why they have 3 of them, to cover down time. Gliding costs money. If I didn't do this sport and did nothing else then I would live a fairly comfortable life to Aust. standards. The costs are always an issue. Always have been. A bit of history here, When my club, the VMFG, was formed in 1944 membership per year was equal to an average weeks pay. In 2011 terms whats that? $1000, more? $1500? Even with all the extras, GFA, VSA and GST my membership doesn't come close to either figure. I suspect flying costs don't reflect the fact we are now flying club gliders at 45:1 rather than the 8:1 back then. Unless I fly my personal gliders 100 hours per year I'm going backwards. They are an indulgence. I can go and fly my clubs fleet for a fraction of the cost with better instruments and performance. As pointed out by others CASA needs its arse kicked on this as well in regard to expectations and payment of administration fees. Gliders have become more and more sophisticated. Look at the majority of AD's issued in the past few years and they generally pertain to motor/turbo gliders. Just how much longer can we expect the GFA (that's us) to continue to cover these costs on what are essentially single engine aircraft. I suspect a majority of GFA(our) time goes into justifying our existence with CASA. What concerns me here is that unless we as the GFA(us) fall into line, a little bit, we could be in real trouble. Some say "tell CASA to jump in the lake" or words to that effect, and point to the fact that we as members have been doing a reasonable job over the past 60 odd years. What happens if CASA say OK, we'll take you back into our system. I shudder to think. Most importantly, its not the glider or cost that attracts people to our sport and retains them. Its the way we operate, the way we treat people, both members and public, and the progress people can see that does. If those things are in place then we can expect development. Continue along the path we have been going and we can't expect miracles. No one is right or wrong in this discussion. If they were, then gliding would be a vibrant exciting sport that covers every ones needs. Patch ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave and Jenne Goldsmith" <[email protected]> To: undisclosed-recipients:; Sent: Thursday, 8 September, 2011 10:43:52 AM (GMT+1000) Auto-Detected Subject: Aging Glider Fleet article Dear VGA member, The use of older gliders for club training, and low flying charges, has come under attack from the current GFA president. I feel it is necessary as a glider pilot to express my disgust at the president's article on page 4 of an otherwise wonderful issue of Gliding Australia. His article alienates a large sector of GFA members who have no problems with older gliders! Is he advocating that every teenager must learn to fly in new plastic - and so learn to drive in the latest Mercedes? Take away the option of learning in an older, sweeter, more affordable and available sailplane.Talk to the Millicent club (one borrowed Kooka, soon to take delivery of their own K7). Read the Booker Gliding Club website (London) - 3 x K13s, their comment is that it's the world's best training aircraft! How many clubs in England, Germany etc still use the K7, K13, Bergfalke etc for training? I understand the Geelong Club K13 does more hours than their plastic twoseater. The article would suggest it spends much of it's time in the maintenance shop! Most of our new members do not come from youtube, they come from family and friends and an affordable sport! Parochial and divisive articles like this do nothing for the sport of gliding - and if you saw the people literally queueing up for the Kookaburra at Women in Gliding Week you would agree he's just out of touch with many members. Let's encourage ALL the various interests among glider pilots. This note is not intended to be inflamatory, but just to point out that many glider pilots do not agree with the current president on the issues of increasing charges and discarding older gliders. Kind regards, Dave G -- -- Dave and Jenne Goldsmith [email protected] 61 (0)3 54 28 3358 PO Box 577, Gisborne, Vic, 3437 Australia www.vintageglidersaustralia.org.au www.australianglidingmuseum.org.au www.gliding-in-melbourne.org www.bendigogliding.org.au _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
