Where has cheap fun gone?

In our club house this morning was a note of ammended charges on the notice board. £230pa for trailer parking £210pa membership! add that to £200 CofA/maintenance and you have £640pa before you have even flown! What happened to the days you read about when gliding was fun and cheep? I might take up hang gliding!

The same that happened to everything else . . . ..when I learned to fly gliders in the Washington, DC area in 1966, it cost ca. $450 (from a commercial gliding operation) for training to the PPL(G) level, or about 4.3% of my gross household annual income at that time. Today, in my club, it'll cost a new member about $2000 (not counting his Club initiation fee of $500) to get the same rating with about the same amount of actual flight time, or about 2.2% of the average gross household income in our demographic area. By 1995, I'd paid more for the two cars in my garage than I'd paid, in 1968, for the house in which they 'lived'!! Hey, prices change for everything!

I don't think it's the price of soaring that turns people off so much as it's just changing priorities for what they want to invest their time/money in.

Jim Kellett Resident Curmudgeon Skyline Soaring Club http://skylinesoaring.org/

Hell Monty, just be glad you did not switch to Euros, it would have cost you 1,039 that way.

John

Try doing your own maintainence and CofA (a privledge our american friends don't have) and that will make a big impact on your costs. Have syndicate partners and reduce the trailer parking bill. But both the frist two fees seem a bit high. I'd better not tell you what I pay, it will upset you.

John Wright, 742

I've had several ex-hang glider pilots tell me sailplanes are funner and cheaper (and doesn't hurt so much). Check things carefully before making the switch!

And if you take up hang driving how much gas (petrol) are you going to use up chasing after your pitiful 10:1 performance?

A load more than the costs you quote in this post.....

Al

Try £320 membership, £320 trailerage or £950 hangerage. Getting expensive in the UK isnt it

Who said gliding was cheap???

I know that in the old days, it used to be cheap in the Netherlands. Tax payers money was used to subsidize gliding clubs. (some sort of: 'we cheat on the other guy and pass the savings on to you'

I rather pay less taxes and pay the real costs of my soaring activities.

That is 63p per day for parking, less than 58p per day for membership. Expensive?

At 13:24 12 January 2002, Montgomerys wrote:

I'm assuming that you fly at a staffed club, probably because you can get a launch and fly any day of the week. I'm also assuming you prefer the convenience of not having to tow your trailer back and forth every time you want to fly. £230 is only about 2000 trailer miles - probably less. How far away are you from the airfield, and how often do you visit?

If this type of flexibility is not required, why do you put up with it? Go fly at a smaller, cheaper club (possibly closer to home). I'm sure they'll welcome the business you bring.

I don't ever recall gliding being 'cheap'. It costs what it costs. We find the resources to enjoy it at whatever level we are comfortable with - but spare me from hang-gliding!

Come fly in South Africa

We have annual membership ranging from R200 at my 'cheap fun' club (about 12 pounds or US $20) up to R1150 (about 70 Pounds and $100) Hangarage ranges from 100 to 200 pounds per year (no big saving there) FAI fees are the same all over the world, national fees just double the cost here...

A 100 foot wire launch will cost you around three pounds, and a beer about 20 pence.

Bottom line is costs are related to the economy - the average salary here would probably not cover the cost of flying , even at our cheap club gliding is not a sport for the poor.

Pity about the cost of flying out here from Europe or the USA but the European Gliding Glub has been doing it anually since 1995. When you pay in first world currencies it gets really economical.