Cheap sailplanes

Even Lennie (God bless him) is important,

To my dogs and daughter, maybe. Not much else counts.

You don't realize how much of what you see as important really isn't
until you've lost that which is really important. You don't appreciate
healthy kids until you've spent fifteen minutes after finding your 34
year old daughter in the bathroom, naked, leaning on the sink with
fecal matter over more than half of herself, and incapable of taking
care of it herself. You don't appreciate being able to spend even a
half hour at the local hobby shop until you're in a position where you
can't be gone that long.

Important? Maybe to one other person, but she's the only one that's
important to me.

From May to the end of November, she might have spent 40 days not in a
hospital, we're now going on an 18 day stretch with her home. I've
learned to appreciate those things that are important. You'd be
surprised at how few important things there really are. Keeping her
able to stay at home even for one more day is far more important than
all of the hours I've spent at (hobby location of your choice.)

Bill Daniels wrote:


Show me a competitor in any field that says, "I don't need to sweat the
basics" and I'll show you a loser.

Paul McCready was the most famous of the pilots I know that espoused
that philosophy ("I don't need to sweat the basics"). I don't recall the
details now, but in essence, he said soaring competition wasn't about
keeping the yaw string straight, but being in better lift longer than
your competitors.


I teach that good is good, better is better and the best are those that stay
up and win contests. The best pilots always strive to get as close to
perfection and as their talent will permit. They never stop learning. Just
being "good enough" is not an option.

After all, even extraordinary flying skill weighs nothing, adds no drag and
doesn't consume battery power. In the long run, it's the cheapest thing you
can acquire to improve soaring performance.

This is all true, but it's a far cry from the original contention that
cross-country experience makes an instructor better at teaching the
basics. I still maintain a good instructor without cross-country
experience can teach the basics better than a mediocre instructor that
has cross-country experience. I encourage all instructors to try
cross-country because he/she might enjoy it and might be able to instill
that joy in a student, but a good instructor should not feel less valued
because he doesn't have it.


--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

I have to agree with Bill and Michel. I prefer instructors (and even
club members) with xc experience (or intention to go xc) because that's
where you have to show your best. I believe xc is an ultimate soaring
exam. You can climb from 150-200m locally but can you repeat it 100km
away under stress of outlanding? Can you afford to make any mistake
(yawing for a while, choose wrong path or speed) when try to make a l/d
max final glide?
You always learn something new and feel as a student again. Hanging
around the airport could be boring and doesn't attract new members. We
shouldn't be lazy to settle down and just telling the 10-20 year old
stories... We should go out again and again and collect new experiences
(and share it at the airport's pub of course. XC experience valuable
for the soaring community only if you share it.
I don't say that instructors without xc experience can't do basic
training. I just think basic training is not too much, training is
really done if the student made the first 300k... How do you support
your student if you haven't done what she/he is about to try?

/Jancsika (a beginner xc pilot, maybe instructor from next spring)

Eric Greenwell wrote:
has cross-country experience. I encourage all instructors to try
cross-country because he/she might enjoy it and might be able to instill
that joy in a student, but a good instructor should not feel less valued

Finally you get it! this is the alpha and omega of soaring. If the
student doesn't get the joy of soaring, he will not stay in the game for
long, if he does he may stay for very long. I have known many
instructors who are only able to disgust their student of soaring,
precisely because they never have experimented these sensations and only
invest themselves in trivial technical details. These people take for
granted that the student is very eager to fly and they can do everything
in their power do curb him to their discipline. Don't search long why
youngsters fly away from soaring.

because he doesn't have it.

--

Michel TALON

Michel Talon wrote:

I have known many
instructors who are only able to disgust their student of soaring,
precisely because they never have experimented these sensations and only
invest themselves in trivial technical details.

Wow! I've met instructors who want to get someone to license
quickly, but I've never met one who "disgusted a student to soaring."

Flying safely, longer, higher, further and faster is the whole essense
of the joy of the "sport." The first standard (the minimum level of
safety) is the license standard in the USA, but I haven't seen
instructors poo-poo the other steps (the soaring, vs. gliding steps).

I'm surprised, and sorry, to hear that Michel's experience has
been different...
--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

Janos Bauer wrote:

I have to agree with Bill and Michel. I prefer instructors (and even
club members) with xc experience (or intention to go xc) because that's
where you have to show your best.

"All other things being equal", so do I; however, I know good
cross-country pilots that are not good instructors (most of these don't
instruct, fortunately), and frankly, some them have poor flying skills.
But, boy, can they find the lift and use it!

I believe xc is an ultimate soaring
exam.

The things that make you good at cross-country are not the things you
need to fly safely. Cross-country flying is mainly about figuring out
where the lift is, then using the best of it. It is not about keeping
the yaw string straight, holding your speed to +/- 1 knot while
thermalling, or making coordinated turns. Those things help, but if
that's all it took, I'd be a winning contest pilot instead of an also-ran.

You can climb from 150-200m locally but can you repeat it 100km
away under stress of outlanding?

Teaching a student to handle stress and distraction is very important,
but it's a difficult job that can only be started with basic training.
Even more important is to teach the student to avoid situations that
cause more stress than he can handle. This is also difficult. My point
is a student can be taught enough of this stress management (by a non-XC
instructor) to qualify for a license and fly safely. It won't be all he
needs to know about it for every flight he might make in the future, but
we all do some "on-the-job" learning, don't we?

Can you afford to make any mistake
(yawing for a while, choose wrong path or speed) when try to make a l/d
max final glide?

Yes, you can. Goodness knows, I've done it many times myself, and I'm
here to tell you about it. It means you aren't as likely to get home and
win the contest, but it's not a safety issue, because you keep a safe
landing area within easy reach. You do, don't you? You don't try that
max l/d final glide across a forest, I hope!

You always learn something new and feel as a student again. Hanging
around the airport could be boring and doesn't attract new members. We
shouldn't be lazy to settle down and just telling the 10-20 year old
stories... We should go out again and again and collect new experiences
(and share it at the airport's pub of course. XC experience valuable
for the soaring community only if you share it.
I don't say that instructors without xc experience can't do basic
training. I just think basic training is not too much, training is
really done if the student made the first 300k... How do you support
your student if you haven't done what she/he is about to try?

The instructor doesn't have to do it all. If the club (or a commercial
operation) has cross-country pilots flying from the same airport, these
pilots can guide the student or newly licensed pilot into cross-country
flying. They can do this by example, by flying with the new pilot in one
of the two seaters, by pair flying, by holding ground schools, and so on.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Eric Greenwell wrote:
Janos Bauer wrote:


I have to agree with Bill and Michel. I prefer instructors (and even
club members) with xc experience (or intention to go xc) because
that's where you have to show your best.


"All other things being equal", so do I; however, I know good
cross-country pilots that are not good instructors (most of these don't
instruct, fortunately), and frankly, some them have poor flying skills.
But, boy, can they find the lift and use it!

My point was only about the advantage of xc experience. If we have two
good instructors and if one of them has xc experience that is more
valuable for me. That's all. I don't state that simple xc experience
will make you good instructor. Even an asshole could fly xc. The key is
to teach what you experience on xc. To transfer all those complicated
lessons in an understandable way requires to be really clever.

I believe xc is an ultimate soaring

exam.

The things that make you good at cross-country are not the things you
need to fly safely. Cross-country flying is mainly about figuring out
where the lift is, then using the best of it. It is not about keeping
the yaw string straight, holding your speed to +/- 1 knot while
thermalling, or making coordinated turns. Those things help, but if
that's all it took, I'd be a winning contest pilot instead of an also-ran.

Hmm, the best instructors who taught me always warned us to pay
attention on details (yaw string, speed, bank angle etc-etc). They were
also successful xc pilots, some of them finished on top several
contests. We fly on flatland only and that makes much difference.
I know that contest is a different issue. XC in club environment, when
only 2-4 pilot is on the task, is more valuable for me.

You can climb from 150-200m locally but can you repeat it 100km

away under stress of outlanding?


Teaching a student to handle stress and distraction is very important,
but it's a difficult job that can only be started with basic training.
Even more important is to teach the student to avoid situations that
cause more stress than he can handle. This is also difficult. My point
is a student can be taught enough of this stress management (by a non-XC
instructor) to qualify for a license and fly safely. It won't be all he
needs to know about it for every flight he might make in the future, but
we all do some "on-the-job" learning, don't we?

Around the airport there just much less impact on the pilot. You can
teach about stress better if you experience it. It's just so useful to
sit down with the "old" pilots and listen what they experienced an
his/her xc tasks. Of course several unexpected things could happen
around the airport but on the task there are much more chance to face
something new. And those cases you have to use your brain...

Can you afford to make any mistake (yawing for a while, choose wrong
path or speed) when try to make a l/d max final glide?


Yes, you can. Goodness knows, I've done it many times myself, and I'm
here to tell you about it. It means you aren't as likely to get home and
win the contest, but it's not a safety issue, because you keep a safe
landing area within easy reach. You do, don't you? You don't try that
max l/d final glide across a forest, I hope!

No, it's not about safety in this case. For example on my first 300km
I started my final glide in a Pirat at 2200m ~60km from the field. I
passed several outlanding places so it was safe but a really long glide
with max l/d speed, yaw string centered. The other pilot outlanded that
day...

You always learn something new and feel as a student again. Hanging
around the airport could be boring and doesn't attract new members. We
shouldn't be lazy to settle down and just telling the 10-20 year old
stories... We should go out again and again and collect new
experiences (and share it at the airport's pub of course. XC
experience valuable for the soaring community only if you share it.
I don't say that instructors without xc experience can't do basic
training. I just think basic training is not too much, training is
really done if the student made the first 300k... How do you support
your student if you haven't done what she/he is about to try?


The instructor doesn't have to do it all. If the club (or a commercial
operation) has cross-country pilots flying from the same airport, these
pilots can guide the student or newly licensed pilot into cross-country
flying. They can do this by example, by flying with the new pilot in one
of the two seaters, by pair flying, by holding ground schools, and so on.

That's why I wrote instructor and club members in my first post. I'm
open to get these lessons from anyone.
In a summary: it's just better if you experience as much as possible
in soaring. Instructors without xc are not bad at all, they could be
just better if they try it again. Unfortunately most of the clubs there
is a tendency to fly less and less xc.

/Janos

Mark James Boyd wrote:
Michel Talon wrote:

I have known many
instructors who are only able to disgust their student of soaring,
precisely because they never have experimented these sensations and only
invest themselves in trivial technical details.

Wow! I've met instructors who want to get someone to license
quickly, but I've never met one who "disgusted a student to soaring."


Well, i have met a lot, and i can say it is not personal bad experience,
since personnally i had luck in this domain. I began with an old
instructor who was very nice, but had extremely strange ideas about
piloting skills (such as flying extremely uncoordinated, etc.), i avoided
carefully a good collection of retired military pilots, and finished
with very skilled and young soaring pilots, but i have certainly
observed that a good proportion of instructors here are completely
inadequate to the job (*), and make people run away. To add to the
point, i have never tried myself to become instructor, since i
don't consider i have the talent and patience to be a good
instructor. Unfortunately a lot of guys become instructor only because
it gives them a sense of being superior, or more simply to fly gratis.


(*) since the job is "gratis" one cannot ask too much, obviously.


--

Michel TALON

SNIP
open to get these lessons from anyone.
In a summary: it's just better if you experience as much as possible in
soaring. Instructors without xc are not bad at all, they could be just
better if they try it again. Unfortunately most of the clubs there is a
tendency to fly less and less xc.

/Janos

Not in South Africa

If I look at the flights being recorded, 1000km is becoming passe.

For what it is worth, my experience is still pretty limited (I am a pretty
inexperienced XC pilot with a longest flight of 250km),however, I only learned
how to really thermal, and a lot about decision making when I flew through a
rain squall in the middle of nowhere and ended up very low and with wet wings
(in a Std Cirrus this is not fun). That time I managed to get back up to FL100
and crawled home. Practicing being low and far from home in a low wingloading
trainer with the airfield in glide range is no substitute for that sudden cold
rush to the heart of realising you are less than two minutes from landing in a
beautifully harrowed field, probably a 2km walk from the farm house, which is
45km from your airfield down the most awful roads. That gets your attention.

Maybe other people learn better from being told, but my experience is that
actually doing it is far more valuable. Now - If I just had someone with similar
performance who flew XC from my club, I might learn faster.

Bruce wrote:

Maybe other people learn better from being told, but my experience is
that actually doing it is far more valuable. Now - If I just had someone
with similar performance who flew XC from my club, I might learn faster.

Try to fly with a good XC pilot in a two-seater - even a short two hour
XC flight with a better pilot can be very helpful. Being in the same
glider, instead of separate gliders, can make the learning quicker.

Arrange a lead-and-follow with a better pilot, and offer to pay his tow
(or at least the beer after the flight!). If you get another pilot like
yourself (about the same experience and similar glider) to join you, you
can split the tow fee.

The experienced pilot can have a better glider, and might need it, if
he's trying help two pilots! If he does have a better glider, it's not
necessarily a problem: he can degrade the performance to match yours;
for example, by leaving the flaps in the thermalling position, or the
gear down.

Or deal with the situation by him following you: he can still analyze
your choices of direction, clouds, etc, and thermalling style, but
simply open the spoilers occasionally when he gets above you. This
method is actually easier for the experienced pilot, because he can keep
you in sight; the other way, the less experienced pilot tends to fall
behind (even if the gliders are the same), and lose contact.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA