On Thursday, April 5, 2018 at 9:42:00 AM UTC-4, 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.

Thanks
Roy B.
GBSC Chief Pilot

We ask that our pilots make sure someone has an idea where they are going during the day. This can be by contact with ground or by radio to a tug or other pilot.
Late in the day we check by radio as to status. It is expected that one of the other XC pilots will stick around for take apart or fetch. This works most of the time.
If a pilot expects that there will be a tug for a retrieve, he must check in and request. Otherwise tug pilots leave at the end of ops.
Virtually all our pilots have Spot or other trackers.
FWIW
UH