2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

On Tue, 29 Oct 2019 12:10:49 -0700, John Foster wrote:

I can't speak for everyone in the US, but I feel it is safe to say that
real practical training for land-outs, at least in the US is very poor.
We read about the theory of it, and get verbal instruction from our
instructors on it. But it would be very seldom that it is actually done
on purpose. I believe this is largely due to the type of training
gliders most people fly here in the US--the SGS 2-33. It is a real bear
to take apart and trailer back to the gliderport after a land-out, and
would likely take a large crew of people working on it for a large part
of the day to accomplish this. As such, folks around here--at least
where I trained in WA, are very apprehensive about land-outs, and at
least with the newer generation of pilots, very inexperienced in it. Of
course, there are individual exceptions to this, but I think it is a
safe generalization to make.

In the UK the necessary training for XC flying (Navigation, Field
selection and Field Landing) tends to be done in Touring Motor Gliders,
e.g Grob G109 or Scheibe SF-25.

My club uses an SF-25 for this. With a bit of power on the SF-25
approximates an ASK-21 well enough for this exercise, so a field can be
selected and the circuit and landing approach flown, with power going on
again when either its obvious its going wrong (so try again) or its clear
the landing would be good and in a well-chosen field. None of these three
are pass/fail exercises - its normal to do them until both instructor and
student are happy.

However, I realise that this may not work for smaller US clubs - no
rentable SF-25s or G-109s in the locality would be a show stopper, along
with, quite possibly, no TMG-current instructors.

FWIW in my club its normal for a new solo pilot to fly SZD Juniors until
they have their Bronze badge, and often Silver height and duration as
well, since all these can be done with local soaring. Then they go for
Silver distance on the next suitable day after getting signed-off for
their exercises in the SF-25. I did Bronze and Silver in a Junior off the
winch and only then got my aero-tow sign-off and converted onto the
club's Pegase 90 and Discus As.


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Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org