On Monday, June 3, 2013 4:55:12 PM UTC-4, Martin Gregorie wrote:

If a student isn't taught the elements of soaring during basic glider
training, why would anybody expect him to stick around for long? I should
think that flying a glider without having the necessary soaring skills
would get boring rather fast.

The theory seems to be that once a student passes the PTS, the successful pilots take the initiative to continue and self-direct their training until they retire entirely from flying. If pilot does not do that, it is perhaps desirable that they get bored and quit.

With the present training fleet, the majority of pilots in the USA learn to fly without an audible variometer and one might argue that that is the most basic skill because batteries sometimes go dead, and many gliders do not have audible variometers.