http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjdQhNHs ... re=related

This is a video of initial light training in Lithuania or Slovenia using old-fashioned "primary gliders" for training. This costs almost nothing to do... maybe a dollar in direct energy cost per flight. The kids helped build the gliders, which no only saves money but gives the kids basic mechanical skills and a better understanding of how airplanes work.

Notice the fact that these are 13 and 14 year old kids, flying an aircraft by themselves safely, learning personal responsibility, getting the world's best foundation for a career or lifestyle in aviation. And having something far more interesting than drugs or video games to be interested in.

Using aluminum tube and pop rivets, a handful of steel parts, some cheap fabric... these gliders look like they can be built for less than $1000 in materials per aircraft. Each aircraft should last long enough to teach dozens of youngsters the basics of flight.

Also notice they have a $20 device attached to the wheel of a car which powers the launch. No expensive winch, no towplane, no avgas, no crowded airport.

Some of us wonder whether aviation can be saved for the future. Here is your answer... thousands of new pilots every year. Anyone who may think that this suggested method does not create valid results can feel free to look up the training background of ALL of the top 100 aces in WW2. This is how EVERY one of them started.

Here's another one with a two-place glider made out of a "Hornet" style ultralight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26tNAW58 ... creen&NR=1

Could never happen here. What if a kid got a scraped knee, or a grass stain on it's cloths? You can't let a kid play dodge ball anymore, and you think we can teach them to fly? Some say these are the good old days, I don't know.
Dave

How old are these vids?
I mean not even helmets
Would be nice to see something like this in NA but I think liability would kill the program.

Heck, I just bought an old Schweizer 2-22E for that very reason, and I'm not even a glider guy! I wanted to get my sons started in it before i turned them loose in the Cub or Stearman,and when I'm too old to pass a medical I'll boat it around the pattern.

The that type of flyng doesn't have to include a several hundred dollar admission fee, or a $75,000 glass ship to be productive. It does however, require a support cast, but I think we could make glider (not neccessarily soaring) cheaper for the youth, we just don't. Plus, make better pilots to boot.

Mike-

This reminds me of the Flugplatze where the young German's where taught to build and fly gliders. Here such names as Lippish and Von Braun were present to hone thier skills that led to some of the great German aircraft of WWII. Too bad their tallents were put to such horrible ends but this was how they got young people involved in aviation.

I know a guy who sold his airplane because it cost too much to operate, and got into gliders for the "cheap flying". He later told me that it cost just about as much to pay the towplane fees, etc as to fly his own.
I know next to nothing about glider ops, but something tells me that car-launching one ain't all beer & skittles-- they had a fatal crash trying to do something like that just last year over at CleElum filming a car commercial. Seems to me like you need a pretty long area (runway, dry lake,?) and the ability to tie it up for a while.

Wrote my post before watching the video. This poor-man's-winch launching looks safer than a car tow, but needs a dedicated launchng site even more so-- big mowed farm field maybe?
It does look like fun, IF you can peel the kids away from their wee's,xbot's, etc

I would have been up for this a teen. Some are doing bungee jumping. Some free climbing so why not? It could be set up so the kids are not going to a for profit business for this but taking up with kids of similar interest and starting their own build to fly club. Parental consent and participation could be required making all of them equally liable and maybe the promo video on this donated and produced by our own lowflybye?
Discuss amongst yourselves.

I submit to ye olde aviation bretheren that there is one and only one workable way to combat the liability, insurance, and physical danger aspects of this kind of activity:

What kids are doing now INSTEAD of flying gliders, is far more dangerous and headed far more in the wrong direction than the risks of them doing it.

As we all hear, these days our youth are:

- doing more drugs at an earlier age
- doing more dangerous drugs than before (today's pot is 5X more potent)
- taking mommy's Xanax and Daddy's Percodan right out of the medicine cabinet
- engaging in risky behaviors of all types ("Jackass" TV show kind of stuff)
- engaging in unhealthy lifestyles, smoking, alcohol, etc.
- getting involved with bad elements and bad ideals
- not getting ANY hands-on manual or mechanical skills
- not learning and hand-eye coordination outside of video games
- not learning or accepting any personal responsibility
- not getting very much scientific or technical education
- not learning the value of teamwork
- not learning the value of their own hard work
- not learning patience or time commitment towards a goal
- no goal setting or goal achievement pride

Most importantly, the risks of flying are manageable. Notice in that video they had one glider mounted on a post for "windjamming" or "flying" in place to teach control function. Ground tows using a car (or motorcycle, or that jury-rigged car winch) can be controlled by the instructor. The amount of speed/altitude/leeway is kept commensurate with the student's skills. Again, notice that some of the training was taxi only, not enough speed to fly but enough to keep the wings level and work the rudder.

This kind of training can be done on a small scale in one standard farm field, but obviously the flight duration and distances will be less than if you had a larger field. One thing that is not addressed in that video is that the wing area of the glider is what determines EVERYTHING... how fast (dangerous) it flies, how much room it takes to takeoff and land, how much power it takes to fly, etc. etc. A super light glider can be weighted for more advanced students, or to compensate for windy days. So for the minimum risk at the beginning of training, you would fly the kids on a calm morning at the slowest speeds. 15 or 20 miles an hour just barely above the ground, with nothing flammable and relatively soft ground is as benign as you can get and still fly.

The point is that there are certainly risks, and those risks will have to be addressed. But the risk of handing a 16 year old the keys to a 3500 pound pickup truck and letting him drive it past a schoolyard are addressed. The risk of letting your child ride his bike to school on the same streets as old Uncle Fred the drunk drives on, or where 90 year old Mrs. Crabtree can't see over the dashboard of the Delta 88... those risks are addressed and accepted.

These risks are also something thsat can be addressed and balanced. What cannot be addressed in today's era is the risk of letting your kid go hang out in an abandoned trailer behind the schoolyard with tattooed and pierced and orange haired Bongo the speed freak and that skanky girl with the nose ring. Now THAT's freakin dangerous!

EZFlap wrote:As we all hear, these days our youth are:

- doing more drugs at an earlier age
- doing more dangerous drugs than before (today's pot is 5X more potent)
- taking mommy's Xanax and Daddy's Percodan right out of the medicine cabinet
- engaging in risky behaviors of all types ("Jackass" TV show kind of stuff)
- engaging in unhealthy lifestyles, smoking, alcohol, etc.
- getting involved with bad elements and bad ideals
- not getting ANY hands-on manual or mechanical skills
- not learning and hand-eye coordination outside of video games
- not learning or accepting any personal responsibility
- not getting very much scientific or technical education
- not learning the value of teamwork
- not learning the value of their own hard work
- not learning patience or time commitment towards a goal
- no goal setting or goal achievement pride

The thing is that there is no way to profit from an accident from any of these dangerous activities. You don't have some yahoo ambulance chaser on TV telling them they are owed a big settlement from the insurance company for their kid smoking pot. I have a 4 year old who's been flying with me since about 10 months, and any time I think about his future in aviation it makes me sad.

You are 100% right about the lawyers of course (Shakespeare was right on how to solve that problem).

But that is what insurance is for. There will have to be some insurance coverage on any flight training, whether it is using Cessna 150's or primary gliders. The same question was raised with equal validity when EAA started the Young Eagles program, but despite those questions and risks it turned out to be the single greatest success story for getting new aviation participants in 50 years. All things considered, it was well worth the risk, and the cost of risk management IMHO.

Have to agree with you on young eagles...

I noticed how nobody had helmets on in the video. Saw another linked video with a 2-person Hornet glider doing the same thing. I think something like this would be wildly popular for boys and youth. Having been a scoutmaster for over 11 years and having 4 sons, I've seen kids have the most fun when something is mildly dangerous (rapelling, airsoft battles, mountain biking, etc.). For adults, this looks like a blast too.

This is someone else's take on the validity ofd this idea:
http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/2006 ... escue.html

Hmmmm.... a scout troop, a couple of aviation adult scoutmasters, some gray hair from a local EAA chapter, and about $700 worth of materials??

Oh, wait, it can't possibly be that easy... A-HA! Found the deal-killer! You don't have access to free plans to build a proven and tested primary glider that has safe characteristics, lots of tech support, and that has been flown by mil-spec test pilots.

Wait a minute, what's that under the couch cushion over there...
http://m-sandlin.info/
http://m-sandlin.info/technicaldrawings/td.htm

doing more drugs at an earlier age
- doing more dangerous drugs than before (today's pot is 5X more potent)
- taking mommy's Xanax and Daddy's Percodan right out of the medicine cabinet
- engaging in risky behaviors of all types ("Jackass" TV show kind of stuff)
- engaging in unhealthy lifestyles, smoking, alcohol, etc.
- getting involved with bad elements and bad ideals
- not getting ANY hands-on manual or mechanical skills
- not learning and hand-eye coordination outside of video games
- not learning or accepting any personal responsibility
- not getting very much scientific or technical education
- not learning the value of teamwork
- not learning the value of their own hard work
- not learning patience or time commitment towards a goal
- no goal setting or goal achievement pride

Yep, their going to be just fine. Living in their parents basement, and voting democrat.
Dave Rains

EZFlap wrote:...you would fly the kids on a calm morning at the slowest speeds...

That would give them a good reason to get out of bed early in the morning. I think the rising generation would greatly benefit from getting up early (and going to bed early too).

EZFlap wrote:These risks are also something thsat can be addressed and balanced. What cannot be addressed in today's era is the risk of letting your kid go hang out in an abandoned trailer behind the schoolyard with tattooed and pierced and orange haired Bongo the speed freak and that skanky girl with the nose ring. Now THAT's freakin dangerous!

I must first say that using gliders like this would be an awesome idea. If I had children I wouldn't hesitate to let them participate, regardless of the risks. If my childhood was any indication, my kids would be doing plenty of things which are more dangerous than flying gliders. That being said, as a farmer, I am not sure if I would let this type of thing happen on my land. I would do it for my own kids, but never for anybody else's kids.

The reason is, I could loose the whole farm if something bad happened to somebody's kid. If a parent who's child got hurt on my land smelt money in the water, they would go after every dime I have. I am not saying they would win, but the shear amount of money required to defend myself and the farm in court could put me right out of business.

As far as I am concerned, no amount of liability insurance is going to allow the landowner to sleep easy at night. I think the only way I would be willing to do this would be to subdivide and sell some land, say 100 acres, to another company which is set up just to limit the farm's liability. I would have to talk to the lawyers and make sure nobody could touch the farm in the event of a lawsuit, but I think it could work. If something happens and that company gets named in a lawsuit by a crooked parent, I am only out the value of the land (at most $100k). Does anyone know if a setup like this would actually protect me and the farm from liability? Could they still go after me (the owner of that company with limited assets)? I live in Canada if that matters.

Yes, letting your kid hang out with the punks in the abandoned trailer is bloody dangerous, but if your kid almost dies from an overdose, who are you going to sue? The punks have no money to their name, so they won't get sued.

Laws are certainly not perfect. It just makes me sick to think that a parent can sue me when I am just trying to keep their kid out of trouble by giving him/her something productive to do. Parents seem to want to blame others for their problems these days.

Youth are interested in aviation it just needs to be made available to theme. I have an aviation club at my school and hopefully an aviation science class next year. The kids are stoked about building an RC glider, heck they were thrilled about the simple balsa gliders. They love flight simulators and learning ground school info. I got about 5 of them ready to go up as a young eagles this weekend.

Kids, parents, my administrators, and school board members which are non pilots are just thrilled about these aviation opportunities I'm bringing to these students and the school. The kids are ready we need to continue to unite and provide opportunities for kids.

I know liability is an issues but that's why organizations like EAA Young Eagles are things we should support and encourage.

I think in a way we have let the media persuade our thinking on how the majority of the population views general aviation (maybe not but just a thought). Rest assured youth is interested in aviation they just need an avenue.

Kids hell.. I Want To Do this...

Well Joe I have a really good idea for you. Austin would be a fantastic place for this kind of training, and you could do all of it on the unused runway. Between your hangar facility at the airport, your position in the community, and that great Lions Club chapter up there... you have just about everything you need to create something wonderful. The airport people can put the glider together and make sure its safe. The Lions can help financially, or find a way to network their contacts and find someone who has some surplus or donated materials. Because you have the room, you can do all of this using a straight car tow down the runway, don't even need a winch device. On the breezy days the kids can practice "flying" the wings level and yawing with the rudder with the wheel chocked. When the kids are ready, on a windy day you can let them fly up to a couple of feet off the ground tethered on a 50 foot rope to a tiedown, with a secondary altitude limiting rope set to stop the glider from getting too high. On calm days you can "graduate" the kids to taxiing down the runway just below flying speed, then gradually liftoffs and eventually up to 15 or 20 feet.

The wonderful part of this is that the kids solo very quickly in a limited, high safety/low risk controlled environment, and it costs very very little. Here is a video of the inexpensive "scooter tow" setup they use in hang gliding schools :
http://www.willswing.com/learn/scooterTow/#video

Now Pops you know that I would NEVER try to manipulate you (by using your personal talents and mountain flying experience and local knowledge), in a sleazy and sneaky way to get you more interested in building one of these gliders. NEVER would I do such a thing, it would be a horrendously sleazy and sneaky scumbag salesman who would even dare to do that. To even insinuate that there might also be a really fun use for this glider for experienced pilots is just too manipulative to mention. It's just too bad there aren't any scenic mountains in your area with good soaring conditions, and an area smooth enough to roll down a hilside, way up there in the middle of Nevada.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml-BO9aYbVo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BytoAmp42YY
http://m-sandlin.info/goat/goat.htm
http://www.youtube.com/user/airchairp/featured

I've know for some time that Bill Berle (Mr. EZFLAP) started out his aviation experience as a Glider pilot here at Boulder City . He advanced on to other means of flight after that . Writer extraordinaire ! If BCP would get behind this effort to support a glider training for young fledgling jr. birdman we might be able to turn the tide and get better pilots -in next generation > weeding them away from Video Games and other non productive traits. I'd be willing to support this with mechanical skills and donations of time and materiel. Graduates of the jr. birdman glider academy would be sponsored- to join CAP or Young
Eagles-- Learning as they go and getting valuable experience for more advanced ratings .