Promoting...or killing the sport?

[Resasi]

Perhaps a thought for the day.

As many may be aware from various previous posts on the Forum there was a move in the United Kingdom to do away with single seat training. This was set into motion by a group who for various reasons felt the way to go was with the big new factory built two seat machines.

This may be of no interest in the US, or in Europe, where the movement seems very vigorous indeed, but I am getting concerned for what may just be beginning here.

It has not taken very long for various, perhaps un-forseen side-effects to begin making themselves felt. The big new machines are pretty costly, and although quite a respectable number have been sold, the market is of necessity a limited one. Throw in a recession, and a worldwide economic crisis, and things get a bit sticky.

Training on them is expensive, and as for insuring them for training, that has been rising alarmingly. Thing is in the past you could throw in some single seat training, it was quite cheap to insure the singles, and if they did have accidents it was generally a set of rotors or at worst a bit of frame damage that really didn't set one back an major amount. That being the case you didn't claim from insurance and the premiums on them remained fairly static.

But there has been a disturbing increase of accidents however, on the big factory builds. And those accidents are claimed on. That being the case, the premiums, already high, have been heading skywards quicker than the students. Suddenly not only are machines not being sold but there are less people ready to come up with the money to even begin training.

When you have a low time PPL on a single he/she can afford to take a few minor mishaps while they learn where the pitfalls are and build some time. Not so on the bigger machines, those same little mishaps cost thousands and we now seem to be moving to a situation where the insurance company premiums may just kill the sport for all of us.

The grassroots of any movement is where the majority can get started cheaply, affordably, while having fun and working their way up, according to their abilities and financial means to the more expensive kit. If that section of any sport, for whatever reason gets removed, sometimes that may just end up killing that sport altogether.

Let us really hope that we are not seeing that begin to happen here.