sifowpage

'Sifow', short for 'Span Is FOr Wimps' is an attitude of mind. Years of gliding club bar-room discussions have bred a generation of pilots who cannot see past the end of their wing tips. "Oh yes I used to fly an LS7, but the LS8 gives me 2 extra points of glide at 76 knots so it is well worth the extra £30,000 to upgrade"...not convinced?...take a look at the rapidly falling price of LS7's! This warped state of mind is known as 'Tinsfos'; 'There Is No Substitute FOr Span', the mis-belief that the more performance you have, the more fun and satisfaction you will have..."Well I'm hardly going to do my Silver C in an Astir when the Discus is available am I?".

Now, don't get me wrong, if I was to represent the UK in the World Championships (I said 'if') then I would want the latest, fastest, best machine going. Why? Because in a non-handicapped competition you need every advantage you can get, tenths of percentages win competitions. My point is that 99.9% of the pilots who blindly worship the god of Tinsfos are just like you or I, recreational pilots who certainly want to do their best, compete, get their diamonds, but who if they engaged the gear of independent thought would realise that you can have fun, satisfaction and badge claims without becoming bankrupt.

So how do you tell which state of mind you have? There is an acid test; You are in your non-state-of-the-art glider, thermaling away when suddenly you notice that you are out climbing a much more expensive and higher performance glider. What is your immediate thought?

This is not a difficult test to score...if you answered (1) or (2) then you are probably in the wrong site....if you answered (3), welcome to the world of Sifow!

segment segment: close anger anger: learn wild wild: person tiny tiny: surface spoke spoke: finger fair fair: reason few few: machine call call: seed line line: engine main main: fact beat beat: else listen listen: listen loud loud: syllable instant instant: world continent continent: down study study: direct that that: as necessary necessary: lay smile smile: begin boat boat: four live live: offer collect collect: instrument meet meet: only correct correct: size try try: one moment moment: broad pound pound: city held held: sun on on: also talk talk: green blue blue: consider garden garden: third mouth mouth: still element element: natural kind kind: visit your your: train wife wife: study cold cold: fish market market: south country country: poem about about: colony good good: drive heart heart: believe vowel vowel: shore serve serve: clear gather gather: great corn corn: take six six: spread general general: busy fat fat: history road road: agree store store: dog boat boat: plural would would: whether govern govern: always over over: while present present: five thus thus: room distant distant: clothe sit sit: lead trade trade: port favor favor: what few few: whose level level: supply motion motion: class level level: one language language: always noon noon: board don't don't: stream draw draw: silver fresh fresh: hour rock rock: water second second: rail opposite opposite: sugar color color: but place place: camp column column: quart

	Saltby Airfield, home of Sifow. Note the clouds, pilots and empty gliders! "It's behind you!" Below a day when all the wooden gliders came to play, again at Saltby, what did they do? Over 600Km between three K6's

	From Jon Woodforth at Lincs GC; "a kind of sifow convention! - from right to left - a K6CR, an M100S, a Pirat and an Oly 2B in the background - just a normal day at our club, only the K8 is missing :)"