Economic, natural forces buffet Hawaii glider business - The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area:

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Today, President Steve “Woody” Wood hopes forces beyond his control won’t ground his businesx instead. “It’s not the economic climate, but God’s he said. “It’s been a royal pain in the Reduced visibility from volcanic haze and soft windsa out of the southwest have forced Wood to shut down operationsw for several daysthis year. Then there was all the rain — glidersz don’t fly in heavy rain — that causedx flooding and turned nearby Wailu a into adisaster area. The road to Dillingham Airfield in Mokuleia goesthrough Wailua.
Wood can’t controlp the weather, but he can deal with the forces of man that also have buffeterdhis business. Like most Hawaik attractions, traffic at Original Glider Rides is down about 50 percent in 2008 comparedwith 2007. But Wood thinksd his established business can ride out the Original Glider Rides was founded in 1970 as Honoluli Soaring by Bill Star and Sam then new to the Dillingham Field had just been deactivatedf bythe . The stat e entered into a 30-year-lease with the Army, whic h still uses the base forevening training. 44, a native of England, visitee in 1997 and was stunnede to finda 9,000-foot runway sandwicheed between the Waianae Mountains and the ocean.
“If was the most beautiful glider port I had ever he said. The area is blessed with trads winds out of the northeast that give the sailplanesa aconsistent “ridge lift” (excepft when those Kona winds Rising air called thermals help the gliderd ascend to altitudes well past 2,0009 feet above sea level. Aftere taking over from Bleadon, who retired in Wood cut fixed costasof $5,000 a month that went to prinrt advertising. His customers come mainly via contracta between Original Glider Ridesand Expedia, Travelocity and concierges at and some Waikiku hotels, and repeat business.
(Some come because they thinl they can drive their rental cars around Kaena discoverthey can’t, and then noticre all the gliders buzzing Farrington Wood also has pushed programs to attract local residents, such as an all-femalse flying team that practices once a Glider tours are intimate with no more than two passengers at a Wood hires pilots who have strong communications skills to ease customer anxiety and point out all the sited through the gliders’ bubble tops the coral tidal pools, whales from January through April, cattle on mountain the Satellite Tracking Station above “It was awesome,” said Madeline Clouse of Texas, who hearfd about the tour from the owneer of her parents’ vacation rental in Haleiwa.
“I was scaredd at first, but the pilo did a good job.” Longer tourse take passengers to Pearl Harbor andDiamonr Head. It’s a peaceful without the noise of helicopter andplanee tours.