aeajr

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SOARING COMPETITION IS ALIVE AND WELL
A report by Ed Anderson, President, Eastern Soaring League

The 2009 ESL season has drawn to a close and what a great season it was. We had 16 hand launched contest days scheduled and 18 thermal duration contest days scheduled.

Since this was my first year as President, I was interested to know about the trend of participation we have seen over recent years. Are we getting more pilot participation or are we trending down?

I keep hearing that interest in soaring is on the decline and that people just aren’t interested in soaring contests anymore. So I asked our score keeper, Luis Bustamante, if we kept participation records over the years, and it seems we do.

In 2009 we had 99 pilots who participated in our thermal duration contest series, not including Novices. Based on the registration reports, in terms of total pilot registrations, we had been on a steep decline from 2000 to 2005. However over the last 4 years registrations have been on an upswing. Even in this year of a tough economy our numbers are up, year over year, for the last 5 years.

In 2009 we had 77 pilots who participated in our hand launched contest series, not including Novices. For hand launch we only have 5 years of registration records. What I saw is that the hand launch division is doing great! In fact, if the HL End of Season contest had not been rained out, 2009 would have been the ESL’s best year in the last 5 years. I think that is an outstanding record!

Who says that interest in contest soaring is dying. It seems to be doing quite well on the East Coast of the United States. www.flyesl.com

Is the ESL an anomoly? Are we the only ones seeing a rise in interest in soaring?

I would love to hear how your league or your club is doing. How do you promote your contests and what trends you are seeing?

sailjunky

Out here in AZ where you can thermal year round soaring contests are doing great. The CASL located in the valley puts on the southwest classic every year and its wall to wall gliders.... And it keeps growing....

aeajr

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Please post a link to CASL so anyone who is interested can find it.

sailjunky

Ok here is the link..


Casl link  http://www.casl.net

sailjunky

Ok this weekend 5th of december is a club contest for soaring in prescott az... Here is a link very fun event..


http://pvsilentflyers.com/

SPasierb

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Ed,

While not competition per se, we've seen a very significant increase in attendance at the formal aerotow events.  Lancaster, PA, Newark, DE and Salem, CT all had larger than expected turnouts this year.  Cumberland SFF was also a great showing, so much they are now doing a new spring one in late March.

I think one key, like you have done for ESL, is to aggressively promote the events.  Life is busy and there are always conflicting priorities, but we find that there are a lot of folks who will come out when encouraged.

Steve

PS:  Anyone living on the East Coast should take a SERIOUS look at the ESL flying calendar.  A number of really fun comp events put on by great clubs.

aeajr

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Steve,

This is GREAT news! I really glad you posted it. If you have more info or links you can add, add them here so others can find these events more easily.

aeajr

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What are YOUR plans for 2009?   More contests or less?

Will you be traveling to contests or only flying your club events?


TD, DLG, F3J, F3F ....   What kind of contests do you like to fly?

shootnstarz

Last year we started having Vista only contest every other month. We've had as many as 29 Vistas at the field at once, it was a blast. Flyers show up from almost 100 miles away to compete. Several of the "die hard" power flyers have even bit the bullet and gotten Vistas and other sailplanes. It's really catching on at our field.

Rick

aeajr

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We have 30 contests on the schedule this year. 

These are League contests spread out over the East coast.

18 for unlimited sailplane and 12 for DLGs.   Should be fun!