How do we encourage more new pilots

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Pete
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How do we encourage more new pilots

Post by Pete » Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:56 am

Well actually we don't, and it is time the LAA re-focused on getting more folks flying.

I just spent the weekend at the Le Mans Classic weekend, this is a celebration of the golden years of the Le Mans 24 hour race. There were something like 70000 people there, probably 60% were 30-60 year old brits.

We were in a camp site with around 200 specialist cars - all sorts moggies cobras TRs and and. The one thing they all had in common was a few bob to spare and a passion for things mechanical. I would think that among the group were probably 20 pilots and 100 potential pilots.

So it looks to me like there are a great number of guys/girls just waiting for the LAA to help them get started.

So what does the LAA have to do to turn these potential pilots into real pilots who will be LAA members. - We have to reach these guys.

We have to raise the profile of the LAA with all these non-flyers

The competition for members is not really the BMAA or AOPA, it's the Cobra Owners Club, golf clubs, sailing clubs, these are the organisations who are stealing our potential members.

In order to reach these folks we have to raise their awareness of flying and what the LAA has to offer. I understand from an EC member that via the new mag deal with Loop, we are pushing mags in the direction of some non members who already take Loop, but how many guys is this - a few thousand tops - there were 70000 potential members at Le Mans at the weekend. Look at the crowds at Soccer and Rugby matches - these again are potential members.

So what to do - well I guess there are lots of things.

How about this for an easy one. In every mag put a single pull out ad, and ask members to stick the leaflet under the wiper of a sports car, 8000 leaflets a month, 7000 thrown away unread, 1000 read, 900 ignored, 100 folks go to the LAA website and perhaps 30 get the bug, bingo 360 additional new members a year.

Of course this does need a good web site - a "High Impact Landing Page" as the experts say.

Here is are some web sites of the competition

http://www.racecar.co.uk/acoc/


http://www.weston.org.uk/ - as a kid I was a junior member, they have a few hundred members, but web site is much better than ours

http://www.islandsc.org.uk/

http://www.ehgc.co.uk/
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Andrew Leak
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Post by Andrew Leak » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:40 am

Hi Pete, I don't want to be pessimistic here (honestly - as it pains me to reply to this), but the organisations where there are 'potential' members aren't (on the whole) reliant on good weather to get where they're going. Arguably sailing is an activity that requires similar skills to gliding but that too requires reasonable weather to take place - although windier is better for the boaty people!. Motor car rallies/displays etc can still go ahead on low cloud days (as long as it doesn't rain) and the biggest problem of all fuel costs in aviation. I have seen many pilots of late, not just through old age/medical stop flying, this due to several factors of course; more recently higher expenses is one, but over regulation, bad weather (and the costs involved paying for an aircraft you can't fly due to naff vis/cloud cover) and now airfield planning restrictions and closures. It doesn't look too for GA when you spend thousands getting that magic licence and it all changes. I remember one of our Strut members saying that he had seen figures for the drop off rate for PPL's - something like after 10 years after taking the GST only 5% remained flying...I don't know if that is accurate but after seeing the Old Sarum Flying Club go to the wall after what seemed a zillion years, this is not good for GA.

I am grimly hanging to my licence at the moment and am starting to drift towards gliding now - I can't stand sailing and I've done the motor sport bit too, but flying is under the skin and no matter how hard my wife tries, she'll not get me into a r*ddy boat. Don't know what the answer is really, its probably a good idea to try leaflets, but it is looking likely that flying is again becoming a 'rich mans' hobby as the huge financial and time commitment is certainly a burden whilst training in the UK.

Andrew

Bill McCarthy
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Post by Bill McCarthy » Wed Jul 16, 2008 10:21 am

Three years ago we had eight pilots in my immediate area. Out of that eight there are only four of us left who fly regularly, with one wavering on the edge. Two packed in as soon as they achieved their licenses. Car/motorcycle enthusiasts have the advantage of pottering about on their vintage motors at home in a warm garage. It's a different story when you have to drive to a cold hangar to do your maintenance. Although encroaching regulation is gnawing away at my enthusiasm, I would dearly love to have my aircraft at home to "escape" to. Maybe I need a build project.

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Post by Dave Johnson » Wed Jul 16, 2008 10:52 am

I've thought for some time that most of the PFA (sorry - LAA-LAA) promotional activity involved 'preaching to the converted'. Eg: rallies, Loop, etc.
Why not have a presence at some of the country shows, such as Uffington, or the Berkshire at Newbury. They get a huge turnout, including most of the local landowners, who could possibly be persuaded to set aside a strip of land, even if they are not interested in flying. It could only raise our profile among the non-flying public.

merlin
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Post by merlin » Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:38 am

The LAA is not yet an organisation that has training as a primary remit so it really makes no sense to preach to those unconverted to flying.

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Rod1
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Post by Rod1 » Wed Jul 16, 2008 12:02 pm

On the subject of recruiting new members I proposed some ideas many years ago;

Firstly, the best group to recruit are existing pilots and people who are training.

To do this you need to “push” membership at;

Student pilots, so free mag or ½ price membership, or free 3 months etc

At airfields.

Use the local struts to represent us at all local airfields, appoint official representatives, arrange fly in and try sessions. Fly and Try is particularly effective in my opinion.

Membership needs the same effort and innovative approach as we apply to our lobbying effort, which is first class.

If you want to be more aggressive you could offer reduced membership to people who are members of other groups, such as AOPA (probably too radical). “Merging” the mag with another general distribution one, there are lots of options.

A relatively small investment in this area could gain big results, particularly with our new name.

Rod1

PS;

“Maybe I need a build project.”

Go for it!
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jamie_duff
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Post by jamie_duff » Wed Jul 16, 2008 12:11 pm

merlin wrote:The LAA is not yet an organisation that has training as a primary remit so it really makes no sense to preach to those unconverted to flying.
I disagree... the kind of people with the money to spend on flying are smart enough to work out where to take flying lessons.

The common impression however is that PPLs only fly at flying clubs in a rented spam can, or are extremely wealthy. It is not well known that it's legal to own and maintain an aeroplane legally and for sports car money in the UK.

I work with a lot of well paid people who spend their excess money on various things, but most are keen to talk about my build project. It would be fair to say that very few if any of them were previously aware that there was a safe and structured means of building/maintaining/owning a light aircraft in the UK.

It would also be truthful to say that a handful of them have gone off to search the internet afterwards for some basic information on how much it all really costs. This sort of summary information isn't easy to find, and that's the sort of thing that I think could help our website.

It wouldn't need to be anything particularly detailed or even accurate, but in the same way a father can tell his 17 year old son roughly how much money a little car will cost him to run, it would be good for our browsing potential newcomers to find a "How much would an aeroplane cost me" page.

The LAA front page is full of links to detailed information - Mod application forms, lists of approved airframe/engine/prop combinations etc etc. This is fine for existing members but it's extremely uninviting (I'd go so far as to say "offputting") for newcomers to be bombarded with a load of jargon and no basic and easy-to-understand information.

The website needs to contain the sort of info that complete aviation novices to find what they need to know - i.e. "Can I afford this?" and "What do I do next?".

Everyone knows that microlights are a cheap (relatively speaking) way to fly, but most of the kind of Porsche buying blokes I work with would be more interested in what we would call "Group A" aeroplanes.

The money is out there, and so is the will to spend it on new hobbies.
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Trevor Harvey
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Post by Trevor Harvey » Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:08 pm

The article in the Jan 08 (first issue of LAA) entitled "Live the dream, how to buy a permit aircraft" was excellent but probably preaching to the converted in some cases.
This article should be put into pamphlet form & distributed freely to any organisation involved in activity sports, certainly airshows & flying clubs if they would allow it.

Pete
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Post by Pete » Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:04 pm

Rod,

Nobody says that's not the best group, but it's not the only group, there are at best only a few thousand of those folks.

How many folks will go to the Red Bull races? how many non-pilots were at Farnborough ?

Every person who turns to watch as a 152 flies overhead is a potential member
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leiafee
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Post by leiafee » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:06 pm

Country shows are a good idea, and not obscenely expensive for stands as I understand it.

Heck, my local county show is even ON a airfield! (Haverfordwest).

It's not news to anyone, I suppose, that GA as a whole has an image problem. It's seen as expensive, noisy and environmentally unfriendly. Those barriers need to be jumped first.

Mind you it doesn't help that existing pilots do so much ruddy whinging!

The first thing you hear if you walk into a flying club these days, (or read this board!) isn't "What a marvelous flight I had today blah brilliant blah blah!"

It's "Mutter mutter price of fuel grumble, some mutterstupidmumble in front of me when I was on final, mutter still waiting for mumble to be fixed blah blah blah!"

I'm sure there are people out there who enjoy grumbling in the club more than they enjoy being in the air!

Assuming we do lure in loads of new people for their first trial flight, we should ban all the whiners from the airfield for the day before they put everyone right back off again!

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Rod1
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Post by Rod1 » Wed Jul 16, 2008 10:17 pm

Pete

You are right. The problem is we are doing very little to pick the low hanging fruit. I think we should try to get the many 1000’s of existing aviators to join first and then move on to the next group. If we can do both at once, fine, but we are not doing either.

The Mag is a really good bit of work (well done Brian) but it only goes out to members, so has no impact on this problem.

Rod1
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Dominicpriestley
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Post by Dominicpriestley » Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:26 pm

My first post on here, just joind as a member last week. Ive been on the Flyer forum for a number of years (Sherburnpilotdom).

I have to say my response to the original questioned posed is.... Nothing!

I have just joined the LAA have have known about the organisation since I started training. I am a few hours away from getting my PPL now, and my ultimate aircraft at the moment is something like a Europa, or Alpi-pioneer, hence my joining the LAA as a fully paid member.

All the information for those interested, is available if they want to find it. Surely those who are already pilots must see that the way costs are going that a permit machine is the way to go. Surley newcomers to aviation search the internet for information and find the various organisations out there.

Am I mistaken?

Bill McCarthy
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Post by Bill McCarthy » Thu Jul 17, 2008 7:55 am

I proposed the agricultural/county show promotional route for the PFA about two years ago. Upwards of 250,000 of the general public attend each of the Royal Highland,the Royal Agricultural and various high profile county shows every year. That idea fell on stony ground I'm afraid.

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Captain Pulsar
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Post by Captain Pulsar » Thu Jul 17, 2008 10:36 am

For many years I believed that almost everybody wanted to fly. I have since learnt that in fact the majority don't want to fly at all.
For some the acheivement of a licence is enough and they actually have no intrinsic desire to continue to fly, merely to acquire the qualification, or just to 'tick that box'.

Nonetheless there are still many folk who perceive the activity as unachievable, too expensive, too difficult, or whatever, but they do have that deep desire to fly one day.
Its not a cheap activity, but can be reasonable with a little effort. My Honda motorcycle consumes around £500 a year in tyres alone, then there's servicing, around £400, petrol, around £1000 based on 10000 miles a year, depreciation another £1000 per annum. Thats a budget of £2900 a year.
My flying budget is less than £2000 a year including hangarage, insurance, fuel for 40 hours pa, permit costs, the lot.
The point I am making is that there are plenty of folk that could afford it if they wanted to.
What stops them is the cost of getting a licence, the time that takes, and the perceived arduous nature of aircraft ownership.

These matters will normally be overcome within a "club" environment, where the difficulties are overcome by enthusiasm, hard work and a willingness to share ones passion. On your own its a difficult, expensive, impossible dream. This is why gliding clubs do well, because of the mutual support provided.

Flying clubs and communities are the answer, actively engaging with ones local ATC and getting those young kids some air time. This is what will get people flying long term, and is why the young eagles program is so important.

Enthusiasm is a wonderful infectious emotion. Once it becomes evident that folk are having fun at the local airfield, people will come!
Per ardua ad Astra. 8)

Andrew Leak
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Post by Andrew Leak » Thu Jul 17, 2008 6:32 pm

Brilliant answer Pulsar! You are absolutely right. I have a lot to do with a gliding club and even at times it gets 'edgy' with some members not wanting to take part as others do. But on the whole I can take a single seater up on a 'good' day and soar for a couple of hours or more - around about £22 for that, or take up the Grob motorglider and soar with the engine off for between £10 - £51 per hour (engine on =£51, engine off =£10 !!). Permit a/c costs tend to be around the £50 phr, so in all, it's the initial licence costs that are the killer along with the commitment...just take a look on Ebay to see the amount of headsets and other pilot bits + pieces that have arrived since people have given up, it's quite an 'eye-opener'.

Andrew

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