(Mark James Boyd) wrote
(2) Clubs and commercial operations make it difficult
or impossible to fly X-C? Compared to what? Compared to
having nothing there at all?

Disingenuous in the extreme. You don't need a 40:1 ship to go XC. I
didn't have one. All of my XC flights were in a ship I bought for
less than $7000, ready to go, current annual, roadworthy enclosed
trailer. That ship spent quite a few years as a club ship. Most
clubs and commercial operations have ships suitable for XC. Hell, a
1-26 or Ka-8 is suitable, and plenty of people are still doing their
first XC's in these ships and having great fun.

Clubs and XC operations make it difficult to go XC by making all sorts
of rules that sound reasonable on paper but add up to making it very
difficult or impossible to get permission. Making the XC required
would force them to change their rules, and that's the reason I think
it's a good idea.

If a solo XC was required for the private, I think this would change.

Yes, less people would have the time and money to complete
the glider PPL.

This is the core of your entire argument downstream from here. All I
can say is what I already said:

These days, you can be a private pilot in power without ever going 80
miles from home. I've noticed that this has failed to actually
increase the number of pilots by any appreciable amount

The reduction in XC requirements has failed to increase participation.
The recreational certificate requires no XC at all, and it has also
failed to increase participation. Therefore, I consider all your
arguments that adding a XC requirement to the glider private would
reduce participation wholly unpersuasive.

The sport-pilot initiative is the opposite of your
idea, applied to power and gliders.

The sport pilot initiative is meaningless. The reduced training
requirement will not affect participation. What WILL affect
participation is the driver's license medical (a little - and be aware
that much of it will be at the cost of participation in soaring) and
the LSA. THAT is what matters - having a new crop of ready-to-fly new
aircraft that can be built and maintained without the costs of
certification. If we really start seeing new airplanes at the cost of
a new car and the ability to fly power without a medical, that's going
to make a real difference. If we don't, sport pilot will have as much
impact as recreational pilot - none.

I'm just really glad that sport pilot is coming along,
so that power pilots aren't required to fly any X-C
before taking a passenger in a Cub or something like that.
I've seen a lot of perfectly good pilots solo, but go no
further due to money constraints. Solo was $1000 vs.
an additional $4000 to finish all the additional
training (night, IFR, X-C, towered airports, etc.).

So? Recreational pilot requires none of this. How many recreational
pilots are there?

Michael