Earning certificates in a glider?!

We just had the annual meeting at our club. It was pointed out that if we don't start training some younger pilots, there isn't really much future for this sport. Almost every member at my club under 50 is ex USAF. The other problem my club has is a lack of CFI-G's.
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That is a universal problem. The lack of CFI-Gs is why I got into it. Gave a guy a ride back from oshkosh in our cherokee that flew at the club am I at now and he told me how badly they needed glider instructors so I jumped on the oppurtinity. It is sad that it is declining here in america. If you look at germany it is booming. I am pushing to start a high school gliding club with the local high school. I would like to work out a deal with our club that we could give a discounted membership to kids in the local high school to get them interesting in flying. Hopefully that would help to boost numbers. I think the problem we have is there are young people who want to do it but no nothign about it and are scared to stop at our airport and ask. So I want to go into the local high school and promote this and get a gliding club started. It would be simliar to their ski club. Once a week they come out and fly and get instruction. Anyone else think this might work or am I just going crazy?
 
Man I would love to try out gliding! It's sounds like such a blast.

Unfortunately, the nearest operation with gliders is about an hour and a half away. The drive there and back would kill any sort of money that gliding was saving me. :(
 
Jbroz04 said:
Hey tlewis do you know anyone who does acro in gliders? I do acro in airplanes and i want to do the same in gliders but no one at my club does it
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I was gonna send this as a PM, but your box is full!

Hey!

I was just re-visiting some of my old posts and saw that you asked me about glider aerobatics in a thread.

I know...it is a problem. Not many people at all do it. The only two places that I know of are Turf Soaring School, in Pheonix, AZ, and a ride business on Oahu, I am not even sure if they do instruction. :(

At Turf however, they have an ASK-21, G103, and the only MDM-1 Fox in the country! I plan on a weekend acro course in the Fox while I am down there to pick up a Pawnee in the Spring to ferry back to WI.

You can still however find the occasional IAC Glider Acro contest though. Most of those guys I think are either self taught, been doing it a lonnnng time, or also fly aerobatics in airplanes and just introduced glider aerobatics to themselves.

Unfortunatly...aerobatics are not as commmon in the US as they are in Europe (where everybody has had at least one glider ride). I believe to become the German equivilent of a CFI-G, you need to have an aerobatic sign-off, and the FAI Gold Badge. Which brings another annoyance of mine, in Europe, people learn to fly gliders, because they eventually want to learn a race. It is a HUGE sport over there. Here (as you will see with your CFI) wayyyyy too many people just get thier license, and fly the 2-33 around the patch a few dozen times before getting bored and getting out of it. If cross country and racing were made a part of the training from early on, the sport in America would grow very quickly I think. It is also a shame that the average age of an American race pilot is in the 50s and climbing. The sport USED to be huge in America, but has dwindled down to me and 4 other guys under 40 racing all of these old timers around the course.

*sigh*

ok, rant over. :rolleyes:
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Hope that helps
 
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