Hobbit
The £525 per hour is misleading as it includes the cost of the entire organization amortised per asset. So multiple sites, staff, aeroplanes, winches, engineering backup (Hmm) etc. So actually £525 is probably not as bad as it appears (although still very expensive) whereas the £70 per hour for a local Grob 109 is based on much smaller outlay and dare I say it a lower engineering requirement etc................. (I'm not saying that the £525 is cheap or good value BTW.......... I'm just saying it is what it is - ' a number')
Cats5
The real issue is the numbers required. No Civilian Club can do the number of launches per day that a VGS does and still meet the requirements of the members (who pay a fair rate for the privilege). I can soon see a bit of a riot when members are told that there is a requirement to fly cadets (which would be underpinned by a MoD contract I am sure) or equally Cadets not getting flown and the contract soon being binned and the cadets back where they are now (no flying). Also a VGS has up to 6 or 7 two seaters on the line fulfilling the flying task of doing cadet training. I can't see any club having anything like that number of 2 seaters available for the task of training cadets - let alone members, as well as the lack of instructors available every weekend for full days, where I live the local BGA clubs are struggling to provide instructors for their members on a regular basis and they are also struggling with the usual problems regarding the membership age profile. (Edit: Not to mention 6 or 7 gliders and retrieve vehicles clogging up the landing area all day long !!) Lastly we come to the other problem and that is that Cadets are doing mainly low level training - BGA clubs teach training but always with a view to the student progressing up the badge ladder - really the two are not super-compatible.
I've broken my New Year resolution already and replied to this thread !!!
Arc