Hi... and some questions from a beginner

You might have scheduled your vacation a bit on the early side, but you're almost certain to get a couple of good days in there.

Some random advice:

* Don't worry about learning to handle the aircraft, let that come on its own. Concentrate instead on learning to soar. Recognizing a thermal, recognizing what isn't a thermal, thermal entries and exits, soaring strategy and tactics, those are good things to learn.

* If possible, try to get some cross-country training in. Hops up to Air Sailing and beyond, or down to Bridgeport, ought to be reasonable goals.

* If you are arriving or departing for your vacation at a Bay Area airport, drop by my shop on Highway 4 on your way home. I'll show you what the inside of a sailplane wing looks like.

Thanks, Bob K.

On Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 8:08:39 AM UTC-7, Bob Kuykendall wrote:
You might have scheduled your vacation a bit on the early side, but you're almost certain to get a couple of good days in there.

Some random advice:

* Don't worry about learning to handle the aircraft, let that come on its own. Concentrate instead on learning to soar. Recognizing a thermal, recognizing what isn't a thermal, thermal entries and exits, soaring strategy and tactics, those are good things to learn.

* If possible, try to get some cross-country training in. Hops up to Air Sailing and beyond, or down to Bridgeport, ought to be reasonable goals.

* If you are arriving or departing for your vacation at a Bay Area airport, drop by my shop on Highway 4 on your way home. I'll show you what the inside of a sailplane wing looks like.

Thanks, Bob K.


Even if the weather is not ideal in Minden, most of the early instruction anyway is nothing but up and down - rinse and repeat. I do hope to get a taste of some higher altitude and ridge stuff - but mostly I expect just your basic intro training - stall recognition, shallow turns, medium turns, speed maintenance, how to land and not make the crew not have to walk a 1/2mile to retrieve the plane, etc.... all the basic stuff.