Change the PTS! How successful would light airplanes be if pilots were
never required to train x/c in them? A newly minted private pilot has four
choices at my club. Fly Schweizers locally, spend 20k+ on a glass ship you
don't know how to fly, quit, teach others how to do take offs and landings
in a 2-33. That last option is the real root of the problem. The core of
our nation's clubs and greatest influence on those new to soaring never
learned to actually soar! Until x/c is a requirement only people with time,
money, and the ability to self teach will be able to it. (Old retired
guys)...

And the argument has previously been made that increasing the barriers to
obtaining a license (cost, time, etc.) has its own discouraging effects.
Consider your own paradox: "Until x/c is a requirement only people with time,
money, and the ability to self teach will be able to it."

I doubt the perpetual chicken-or-egg conundrum as it applies to soaring will
(or can) ever be satisfactorily laid to rest. That said, learning to soar and
learning how to fly XC are different - if complementary - skills. Knowing how
to soar is a prerequisite to flying XC; not true the other way around...

Somehow, despite doing all my primary training and obtaining my private pilot
(glider-only) license in a club having only a 2-33 and a 1-26 and but one
instructor (not mine) with any XC experience, the "XC seed" was planted and
took root in my mind even before I'd taken my first lesson. How? My officemate
was an XC glider pilot, and from breeze-shooting with him as well as
accompanying him to do glass repairs on the gear doors/belly of the Libelle of
the one instructor with XC experience - land-out-induced damage (really!) - as
well (perhaps) as my innately realizing flagpole sitting as an idea seemed
boring merely as an idea, "it was obvious" to me that my PP(Glider)
certificate was but a license to learn without always having an instructor in
the back. Point being that it was the *idea* of XC that was the crucial part
of the picture for me. And the idea cost me nothing but some enjoyable
breeeze-shooting and hanging out time.

I actually obtained my license before ever soaring (i.e. climbing) on my own,
and only once experienced my instructor climbing in a thermal, so I suppose my
second point is that *neither* soaring nor XC need be crucial elements of
obtaining one's license...while the *ideas* of both, most certainly *are*
crucial elements to going XC in a glider...and opening one door to a lifetime
of (good!) life-altering experiences. How a person thinks, matters!

Bob W.