Open Discussion; Creating XC pilots

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.