OK, I'll bite.
On 16/04/2015, at 9:04 AM, DMcD wrote:
If we had an an organisation in Australia that was actually
interested in promoting gliding and helping people do it easier and
cheaper, things might be different.
Easier and cheaper? Name me one alu airframe which is lower
maintenance than a glass glider!
The 'cheapest' argument is a mix of capital cost+operating
cost+utilisation profile+local material and skills+preferences
The 'easiest' argument is a mix of - in a voluntary not-for-profit
activity how each person values their own time+ interest areas and
outcomes preferred.
In short, there is no single best fit answer.
Promoting gliding? Who turns up at a club, having seen pictures of
shiny glass gliders in promo material, and happily climbs into a
dusty, buckled and faded antique?
I'm sure that with the limited resources available to the GFA, they
have no time to chase around trying to keep a handful of relics in the
air. I know that most busy clubs have better things to do than to keep
alu gliders in the air compared with glass ones.
This was the basis on which GFA was unable to support clubs with G103
at their life limit.
It takes about 1 day a year to maintain a K21 and two or more weeks to
maintain a KRO3.
This is the basis for GFA to advocate the use of commercial shops.
I know that for smaller clubs this is a difficult scenario but I don't
believe the small gliding movement in Australia can have one foot
nailed to the ground by trying to keep heritage aircraft flying.
To continue the thoughts in para 1, 'gliding'/'soaring'/'sailplaning'
is both a small (insignificant?) part of sport aviation inside a
mammoth GA-Transport conglomerate; positioned inside a society where
'airmindedness' has become the expected norm rather than wow.
The sport is also an amalgam of a number of separate interest groups
flying in loose formation.
Cutting edge - contest - recreational - median norm - vintage.
It thus becomes difficult to simplify to single statement answers.
There was however a time when overarching organisations held enough
corporate knowledge to be able to give each segment its due. Whereas
now with the loss in sport size and elder statespeople and corporate
knowledge, we are reduced to grab bag reactions based on gut feel.
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