Very few of the contributors to this thread know the ramifications a "license" will have longer term. I do, because 2/3rds of my gliding life I have been a licensed glider pilot. Absolutely none of the perceived advantages exist, a hell of a lot of disadvantages will become apparent only after that dreaded piece of paper is in force. Believe me Australia, you are the lucky country, don't waste it. Rolf A. Buelter - VH-WQF
>From: "Dawber, Ken" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: [aus-soaring] What's in a name? >Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 17:58:40 +1000 > >What's in a Name? >----------------------------- > >I'm surprised by the attitude of the GFA against the CASA license proposal. > This is particularly so as the Gliding community (and consequently GFA) >struggles to get new members and has trouble keeping them. > >One of the advantages of the CASA proposal is that it will use the word >'license' on one of our qualifications. This is important as it helps to >attract people into the sport and helps to keep them in the sport. This is >particularly true where we loose large numbers of people after going solo. > >Without the license the solo becomes the main goal. Wording such as C >certificate etc mean nothing to the man on the street and consequently >don't provide sufficiently appealing goals to make the large investment and >time and money worthwhile. Gaining some sort of Glider Pilot License is a >far more appealing and desirable goal. By the time they reach this goal >they should be doing cross country and hopefully getting the bug for >competition. > >The lack of license in our sport provides a bad impression to the outside >world. It indicates a lack of professionalism. Just how much so was >indicated recently by the following experience. > >I mentioned in passing to a friend/acquaintance (table tennis opponent) >that I did gliding. He was very interested but didn't know what gliding >was (as opposed to hang gliding etc). It turned out that he and his >brother had wanted to do some hang gliding but his brothers wife had put >her foot down as she considered it too dangerous. Proper planes would have >been OK but not hang gliders. As I had recently regained passenger and >backseat ratings following a long absence from gliding I was keen to take >them up. My club could do with some extra members and they were keen to do >some aviation.. > >I explained that these were proper planes and flown the same way as planes >etc. All was going well until he asked if I had a license. Explaining >that the sport didn't have licenses changed the whole thing. No longer was >there an impression that we were proper pilots or that we flew proper >planes. > >The same is also seen in the International Gliding community. In some >countries Australian pilots are unable to get their qualifications >recognized simply because the word 'License' doesn't appear in their >qualifications. > >The Gliding Community and the GFA will have a major problem if CASA goes >ahead with the proposal with other aviation sports but leaves out gliding. >As the other sports will have a common license (just different endorsements >as they go from one to the other) there will be an appearance that gliding >experience doesn't count. In fact this may be more than just appearance. > >Combine this with the fact that the other sports have licenses that are >recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and >gliding will not be very appealing. > > >Ken Dawber > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ph 0409 790 802 > > _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com -- * You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list. * To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message * or with "help" in the body of the message for more information.
