On 2014-08-16 10:14:00 +0000, Fox Two said:

The more I think about your idea, the more I like it. I strongly agree
that the key to getting more cross-country pilots is to get instructors
to convey that excitement to their students early. Many instructors
haven't ever flown cross-country themselves, so they don't ever share
it with their students. If we could get those instructors into
high-performance two-seaters and fly some nice tasks with experienced
cross-country pilots, some are bound to get hooked.One way it could
work:

I don't own a glider and have never done much "real" cross country.
I've hired the club PW5 and taken it to comps and done 200-250 km
thermal tasks (even won a day once).

Landouts with rides or students screw up the bookings for the rest of
the day, so I try not to cut it too fine, and certainly not NEED to
find a thermal to get home. But 3000 or 3500 ft 20 or 30 km from the
field *feels* like cross country to the inexperienced, even though you
should only use half or two thirds of the height getting back. You
can't see the airfield. You can't even see the town the airfield is in.
Even in flat land. In fact, the field is often hidden by ridges that
you have to cross on the way back.

It's a very powerful thing to tell the student to head for a 1500 ft
ridge 10 or 15 km away that looks to them to be just as high as you
are, and as you get closer the airfield 5 km beyond it is slowly
revealed.

Of course we're using (short wing, fixed gear) DG1000s for all rides
and training, but frankly the retractable Grob twins we had before them
were almost as good if you kept the speed down. The main benefit of the
DG (besides the better handling and better CofG control and infinitly
better instructor comfort) is that it only takes a few hundred feet
above best L/D glideslope to pump the MacCready setting up and romp
home at 80 - 100 knots.