On Saturday, 30 November 2019 21:30:21 UTC+13, Branko Stojkovic wrote:

With regards to the stick-and-rudder skills, the matter is pretty straight forward. In general, there is a direct correlation/causation between the flying experience and the stick-and-rudder skill level, i.e., the beginners have limited skills and the experts have excellent skills. Furthermore, most pilots can fairly accurately assess their own stick-and-rudder skills. A yearly check ride with an instructor provides a useful feedback about the areas that need improvement.

Well I would take issue with that statement. I fly with a wide range of pilots from a wide range of backgrounds and have learned to be careful with generalisations.

I have flown with experienced competition pilots with thousands of hours who I would not be comfortable with in a tricky situation. I have flown with pilots who have barely finished their training with a few hundred hours who I wouldn't want to take control from for fear of embarrassing myself because they flew so precisely and correctly. I don't even try to guess in advance which is which any more. I wait for the evidence.

So I would suggest that good handling skills can be learned relatively quickly, but that they don't just get better with repetition. You need to actively try to improve.

Many 'experienced' pilots have been doing the same thing over an over and have embedded bad habits or lazy handling into their flying.

The biggest difference I see is many low time pilots know they haven't learned enough yet and want to get better.

When pilots just want to get by, they should probably think of moving to an activity that doesn't punish mistakes quite as hard.

Okay, so what about them decision-making skills, which also vary among the glider pilot population? It is safe to say that in this case there is a much weaker correlation between the flying experience and the skill level. It seems that the decision-making skills are much more related to the psychological makeup of the pilot and makes things much more complicated and causes several intractable problems.

This is the major factor. If you come up with a solution, let me know.

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Phil Plane