On Thu, 05 Apr 2018 06:41:58 -0700, Roy B. wrote:

Friends:
I am trying to learn more about how different clubs with active XC
pilots flying privately owned gliders handle the problem of determining
"Is everybody back safely?" - before everybody at the airport goes home.

In my club we frequently shut down training operations around 5:00 pm or
so and the day's Duty Officer, the instructors and tow pilots will all
leave, but we will often still have pilots out on course sometimes as
late as 7:00 pm or later. Some pilots have landed back to find that they
are the only ones at the airfield. It has happened to me several times.

It seems that there is a real risk of an accident happening on course
and nobody realizing it until the next day, or a risk that somebody
lands out safely but that fact is not communicated back to the airfield
(with a lot of unnecessary worry and confusion).

I'm trying to come up with a procedure that makes sense for our club and
so I was hoping people would share here how they try to solve this
problem.

We have a sheet at the launchpoint (UK club). Everybody planning on going
XC puts an entry on it giving glider ID, mobile number, planned task
(which may be 'local') and mobile number for their crew. This, in
conjunction with the launch point log, lets the duty instructor check
whether everybody is back at the end of the day and, if people aren't
back, where they were planning to go and their mobile number.

The club also has a dedicated landout number which anybody can answer if
the office has closed for the day.

In addition the club is on the OGN network. All club gliders and almost
all our private gliders carry FLARM, so we can easily see if they're
still flying.

While I realise that the OGN/FLARM part of this may not work outside
Europe and the UK, our paper procedure should work everywhere.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org