Sandy Stevenson wrote:

solo and licence cycles. We've seen Cambridge's booking system, and
started a simplified booking system of our own last season. This year
we're trying to improve it by assignng students to an instructor and a two seat
aircraft in pairs for 90 minute blocks. When there's no lift, we're hoping this
will get each student 2 to 3 flights each during the block.

I'm a Cambridge pilot who went solo before the booking system was
introduced and then, for reasons that are not relevant to this thread,
needed to re-solo last year. As a result I've done the pre-solo thing
both with and without the booking system in place.

The upside is that ab initios get to fly with minimal waiting around.
The downside is that students and club members wanting two seat time are
much less likely to turn up "on spec", so the launch point is more
likely to be short-handed and, worse, people who know the ropes are in
short supply. This is probably more of a problem with winching than for
aero towing but it certainly makes smooth operations more difficult if
you're trying to run both flight lines.

A side effect is that there are many fewer people around the launch
point to talk to, so the perceived friendliness of the club is reduced.

This isn't an attack on the booking system which, in general, works
well. However it does flag up the issues I've mentioned. Maybe my
experience makes then more obvious than they would be to a first time
student: I can't tell. I've thought about it and can't see an easy
solution to these downsides but maybe somebody cleverer than me can come
up with good ideas.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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