Am Dienstag, 8. September 2015 00:30:50 UTC+2 schrieb C-FFKQ (42):
On Monday, 7 September 2015 07:19:10 UTC-4, Bruce Hoult wrote:
Is anyone doing basic training in Duos? The DG1000 is just fine (especially with the 18m tips). The Duo would be no problem in the air, but unsprung undercarriage doesn't seem like a good idea for student landings.

Bruce, how many flights does it take to get to solo using the DG1000 ?

At my club, we have a youth camp of 3 weeks duration where we train using 2-33's. We solo our kids usually around 24-28 flights. The 2-33 is a tough ship and can handle the abuse, a great workhorse.

I've been training ab-initio students in Ka7, Twin Astir, Janus B and ASK21, and I haven't seen any significant difference in how long it takes to solo.

I can't imagine how you would attract people to gliding if you offering them to train in a 2-33... It's the year 2015. ASK21 are very tough workhorses, and an repairs on glass ships are *much* easier and faster done than on wood and fabric. That's one of the main reasons clubs in Europe changed from training in Ka7 and ASK13 to ASK21 - almost maintainance free, and cheap to repair.

But I guess that states of mind are quite different on both sides on the pond: From what I learned, you can get a glider licence in the US without having thermalled once, and you can be trained by instructors who have no XC experience at all. In Europe, that would just be impossible.

We typically try to "snatch" the youngsters, starting from age 14, and we offer them training up to their first 50 or 100 km solo (well, we have to as it is mandatory). And we don't teach people to glide, but to soar. A 2h solo flight is mandatory before they move on to initial XC training.

All of this is not seen as "additional barrier", but part of the game.
And we dont threat them with 2-33 or 1-26. In modest clubs, a beginner is trained in an ASK13 and then moves on to Ka8 and Ka6, and then relatively quickly to some glass club class glider. In my club, our fleet is 2x ASK21, 2x DuoDiscus, 2x LS4 and 2x LS-18-18 for about 50 actively flying members, and days where you won't get a seat in one of these ships are extremely ra There are about 15 private ships owned by club members. We have a total of 9 instructors, all with XC experience, two of them doing 700 km through the Alps on a regular basis.

And no, we don't have the problem that our membership is declining.