Glider Cross-country signoff & FARs

In article ,
Jamey Jacobs wrote:
In discussions with other US glider pilots recently, and based on a
quick search of the FARs, I believe that US pilots with PPL-Glider
rating do not need any endorsements or sign-off to go cross country.
If anyone knows differently, let me know.

Before there's lots of advice to get training, fly dual x-c, etc - I
agree, and am not talking about what is the appropriate training. I
just want to verify that a PPL-G includes x-c priveledges. Of course,
clubs and rentals have their own sets of rules.

Jamey,

Correct. The PPL-glider has no X-C restrictions. Whether X-C
is safe for this person is entirely up to them. I personally
think that the Silver badge is fun, and if one can fly for 5+
hours then one can likely achieve the distance for X-C (30+ NM).
Finding and landing at an airport you've never seen before
is the biggest challenge for brand new pilots.

Of course you can always drive to the prospective landing spot and
see if the runway is wide enough/where the taxiways are, etc. Or
you can fly there in a powered airplane. I scouted all of
my landouts before I used any of them.

From there, if you want to be extra cautious, just take a high
tow. At Avenal, for $100, one can get a 10,000 ft tow and
with the typical 15 knot tailwind, fly to Lost Hills airport
as a final glide (with a lot of safety margin). With an $80
GPS on board, it would be hard to miss the destination airport...

I did my first dozen cross-country glider flights solo
(but I did have a PPL-airplane first). I spent a lot of time
on the ground planning and talking to other pilots and
marking the map with landouts and scouting the landouts
though. What you do depends a lot on what glider, what conditions,
what terrain, what skills you have, etc. However you do
it, good luck!