Open Discussion; Creating XC pilots

Noel wade wrote:
one of the issues leading to a lack of XC pilots is that basic training (especially in club environments) tends to be a very drawn-out affair


Noel, you are quite right barriers and inconsistent instruction is the name of the game in most club environments, but there is a way around this problem. Contiguous instruction over a short period of time achieves best results. Course instruction would achieve this but the objection is always we don't have the resources to run week long courses. So don't run week long courses run the course over a number of weekends and reduce the tow height to 1,200-1,500 feet or better still run a winch operation. Another refinement would be to charge up front for the course and add as an option a small fee to cover the first years membership. The benefits:

Consistent instruction
Rapid advancement
Guaranteed attendance by both instructors and students
Ground school in the non flyable periods
Students learn the operation and the benefits of group cooperation
Instructors and Students are guaranteed their time is not wasted
I am sure you can add a few more

Andy Gough

Andy - Yes I have many of the same thoughts & opinions. You talk of charging a fee: I think some people are overly-concerned about making soaring "cheap", but this is a false approach when there are so many less-expensive hobbies out there (including R/C plans and paragliding/hang-gliding). I think we should try to keep costs reasonable; but c'mon people, a Cessna with an instructor costs around $200/hr these days!

Even if costs rise some from their present levels, Soaring is way more money-efficient than that. Its just way less time-efficient, due to the manner in which many clubs/field-operations are run. I've got no problem with the idea of throwing up a (low) fiscal bar for entry, if it enables better operations or training. And requiring an upfront commitment (such as you're proposing) helps discourage the folks who aren't passionate and motivated. HOWEVER, if you offer such a program and get a commitment from students then you *must* be able to follow through with it. And you have to make sure that people feel they're getting their money's worth or you've done more harm than good. Providing that value takes organization and dedication, though - and securing those commitments from people in an existing embedded culture is tough...

On a separate note, I'm still working on earning my CFIG but I am surprised folks don't use varying tow-heights based on the phase of instruction the student is in. For example: I think instructors should consider 4,000 to 5,000 foot tows when they're working on things like rudder coordination, steep turns, stalls, slips, and slow-flight. Give the student a long-enough flight to practice maneuvers 2 or 3 times in a row (similar to many SEL airplane training flights, which are often 1 - 1.5 hours in length and involve practicing a maneuver a couple of times in succession). When training changes its focus and the landing pattern becomes a point of emphasis, there's certainly a strong case for pattern-height tows and/or winch-launches. In fact, there's even a case for setting aside some part of the day's operations to let a student and his/her instructor do these practice landings back-to-back (i.e. they land, pull up to the front of the line, and immediately take another pattern tow).

--Noel

On 2014-07-16 22:19:12 +0000, noel.wade said:

On a separate note, I'm still working on earning my CFIG but I am
surprised folks don't use varying tow-heights based on the phase of
instruction the student is in. For example: I think instructors should
consider 4,000 to 5,000 foot tows when they're working on things like
rudder coordination, steep turns, stalls, slips, and slow-flight. Give
the student a long-enough flight to practice maneuvers 2 or 3 times in
a row (similar to many SEL airplane training flights, which are often 1
- 1.5 hours in length and involve practicing a maneuver a couple of
times in succession).

I guess we are fortunate where I fly that there is a good percentage of
days on which at least one of the local ridges is working well enough
for even beginning students to stay up for as long as you're prepared
to let them have the glider. And plenty more where you can let the
student lose 1000 or 2000 ft and then the instructor can get it back
(whether close in ridge flying or thermal) and let them have another
try.


When training changes its focus and the landing pattern becomes a
point of emphasis, there's certainly a strong case for pattern-height
tows and/or winch-launches. In fact, there's even a case for setting
aside some part of the day's operations to let a student and his/her
instructor do these practice landings back-to-back (i.e. they land,
pull up to the front of the line, and immediately take another pattern
tow).

That happens naturally for us. There's a line of single seaters between
11 and 1. Outside that, there's mostly only the two DG1000 trainers
taking tows and even on the worst days the flights are more than twice
the length of the tow plane turnaround time, so there's no queue.