Our chapter has a young eagles rally tomorrow and I'm growing concerned we may have more kids show up than we can fly. We have 10 pilots/airplanes which I'm very happy about. Vouchers to fly another time puts a burden on the pilots to schedule. The big problem is how to fix the broken hearts of the aspiring pilots that thought they were going to go flying that day. Could be 250-300 young eagles showing up.
Where are you that you get that many kids? I guess it should be in the order of sign up to be fair. Safety is the vital part and I dont think I could do more than about 8 flghts a day at peak alertness.I once did 7 in hot june weather and was really having to work to concntrate the last one. Please dont cut short any safetly items like loading with engines running to save time.
Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 09-22-2017 at 06:27 PM.
Rochester minnesota. I used a public event post on facebook.
Anybody have any good suggestions on how to prevent this sort of thing in the future? A reservation system would work, but would probably get awkward trying to implement. If you could get the cooperation of a business at the airport, you could leave vouchers and have people pick them up the week before.
Last YE event I ran was ~20 years ago, and I remember my fears that we had more kids waiting that I could finagle rides for. IIRC, about noon I was telling new arrivals that they wouldn't get to fly.
Edit: Probably, at minimum, any advertising should include something along the lines of, "Limited to the first XX kids."
Ron Wanttaja
Last edited by rwanttaja; 09-23-2017 at 09:45 AM.
Ya, never post an event on Facebook that you know has finite participation. You're just asking for a turn out that will be a fiasco. Totally unmanageable and the parents and kids are going to be left with a bad taste about GA.Originally Posted by rwanttaja
I'd implement the concert type model. Announce that this is a wristband event. The first xx to show up at a specific xx location at xx time and day will receive wriistbands that guarantees holders to flights on the day of the YE event.
A low cost solution that does cost a little 'hassle' equity, one chapter member becomes the "Box Office" for the event.
Make up a simple reservation sheet for each airplane/pilot with time slots for each flight they feel they can make. The Box Office, over the phone, takes reservations and fills in the time slots for all the planes. At the bottom of each sheet allow for one or two (or more?) "standby Eagles" who can take the slot from any Eagle who doesn't show up/last minute cancels. Require arrival of the Eagle at least an hour before their flight slot.
The standby youths can show up as early as they want (and there's probably some way to keep them amused) and they wait for an opening. If ALL the Eagles show up on time and on target? It shouldn't be impossible to get rides for the few standbys remaining.
The only way to avoid offering more rides than you can provide is by restricting participation.
Standby status is used for a lot of venues from airlines, to motorcycle safety classes to true Box Offices for sold out events, concerts etc.
Just my thunk on a steamy Chicago Saturday evening.
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