On Friday, July 18, 2014 10:58:48 PM UTC-6, BobW wrote:
On 7/18/2014 3:53 PM, wrote:

I am curious. How many people in this discussion were hand held every step

of the way of starting to fly XC or just went out and tried it for

themselves?

Snip



...I am just asking because at

least here in Utah, my observation is that the only XC pilots I know taught

themselves. Those who are waiting for someone to take them.......are still

waiting.



Assuming by "self-taught" you mean something along the lines of absorbing

basic instruction goal-oriented essentially toward one's ticket, during which

perhaps the mentioning of badges and a broad-brush intro to the basics of XC

flight/landing concepts occurred...along with the obvious expectation that of

COURSE every trainee would eventually go XC, then self-taught worked for me.



The only mental hurdle of any significance in my mind was the off-field

landing aspect, and the thought of hand-holding never occurred to me, even had

it been a possibility in the early 1970s (which it wasn't). A person either

elected to fly XC or chose not to, and I recall being surprised that there

were people who chose NOT to go XC. I didn't realize there were until after I

had my license...and by then it struck me as quite odd!



The concept/possibility of "hand-holding-based XC training" reminds me of

something engineers (my degree) are often accused of in the

manufacturing-oriented industries with which I'm familiar. Namely, engineers

need managers/sales-types/whomever around to pry from their designing,

grasping hands the widgets...or else said widgets would never go into

production, design perfection being arguably endemic to many engineers.

("Better" is the enemy of "good enough.")



Might there be a similar effect at work in some wannabe XC pilots where the

concept of "learning perfection" is substituted for "design perfection?" One

can always learn more, but "forever learning" can also inhibit learning's

application. At some point, "Just do it!" makes sense. Distance falls out in

the wash once Joe Pilot knows how to safely pick fields.



Bob W.

Fear of out landings just didn't occur to me as a student pilot. The "airfield" at lake Elsinore, CA was smaller, rougher with bigger weeds than the surrounding farm fields (This was in the early 1960's.) so land outs actually seemed safer than coming back to the home field.

Then, as now, there were a minority of pilots who loudly declared that anyone who went XC was "crazy" - unfortunately some were instructors who made sure their students felt that way too. That got me thinking that all instructors should be required to have at least some XC experience to weed out the anti-XC types.