126Driver wrote:
The BGA instructor qualifications require candidates to have cross
country gliding experience. Is the Silver C satisfactory for all
instructor levels, or do some require more testing cross country
experience.

Instructors in the USA are not required to have any cross country
training or experience. Cross country experience seems unnecessary.
Why is this considered necessary in the BGA? Are USA instructor
requirements and instructors considered to be equal to BGA
instructors? Would a USA instructor easily qualify as a BGA
instructor. Or would they need additional training.

I've only attained the lowest UK instructor rating (Basic Instructor) -
beyond that are Assistant and Full. This therefore only gives my
personal perspective, and I'm sure better qualified UK pilots will give
you a more detailed answer.

1. In most UK clubs, Silver C is seen as the level at which you have
become a competent pilot who could, for example, make his or her own
decision as to whether he or she is competent to fly in the particular
conditions of the day. Pre-Silver pilots generally need permission from
the duty instructor to fly. (Note that no matter how experienced you
are, you always need permission from the duty instructor to fly, but if
you're Silver and flying from a site you know, this is likely to be more
a courtesy matter, together with a check that you've actually read the
NOTAMs, have a crew sorted if you're flying XC, etc.) Thus it's the
minimum for becoming an instructor.

2. XC experience is not a formal requirement (other than the Silver 50k)
for any instructor rating, but the expectation in most UK clubs is that
an instructor is not merely teaching the student to fly but also to
soar, and to lay the foundation for that student's later XC flying if
the student wants it. For that reason, it's nowadays extremely rare to
find a UK instructor whose only XC experience is the single 50k flight.
Clubs do much of the initial instructor training, before the candidate
attends the official BGA course, and also complete the certification of
Assistants through signoff from the club CFI. I suspect that some (maybe
most) clubs might be reluctant to undertake this training until the
pilot has proved that his/her abilities go beyond the Silver level, and
this would normally be through flying XC.

3. I would guess that US instructors would not be seen as directly
equivalent because all UK instruction is supposed to be standardised to
follow the BGA Instruction Manual (though, of course, every instructor
has an individual approach, and many advanced elements are not covered
in the manual). Thus I think a US instructor would need to learn the UK
manual and then be tested on instructing to that standardised method. As
gliding is self-regulated through the BGA we're pretty non-bureaucratic
- I'm sure that a Burt Compton or Tom Knauff, for example, would talk to
the relevant club CFI and the BGA to devise an appropriate and tailored
programme for qualifying for a UK rating. Given the different methods
used, this would clearly be more than a check flight but less than a
full course (which in any event is not a formal testing programme but
instruction on how to be an instructor - thus I've heard of candidates
"passing" before the end of the course because they've reached the
required standard).

If you're asking as a US instructor moving to the UK, the obvious thing
is to find a club, fly and talk with the CFI, and then discuss next
steps with the BGA, probably via the local Regional Examiner.