What powered skills translate best to glider?

On Monday, September 14, 2015 at 7:33:17 AM UTC-7, Joel wrote:
I'm just learning to fly and decided to start with gliders (aerotow launch). However, as I joined a club its slow to build time and get experience. I was wondering if I could accelerate that with powered flight...

1) What powered flight skills could I concentrate on that would best accelerate the learning curve in the glider?

2) Would it be a better option to drive farther to get motoglider experience, or would the more nearby powered craft be just as good?

TIA,
Joel

I think it is an excellent idea to get some power training before getting glider training. You can get a lot more concepts presented and maneuvers executed in an hour of training in power than you can in a glider.

Besides patterns and landing practice, you can do slow flight, stall recognition and recovery, and steep banked turns. Most important, I don't think any of the instruction would be counter productive.

Of course a motorglider would be better, but you can get a lot of instruction during the time you would be driving to and from the MG location.

Good luck with your training!

Tom

If you train in power, I suggest doing so in a taildragger, it'll teach your feet how to fly as well as the rest of you. Nosewheel aircraft tend to make for feet lazy in rudder skills, ground operations and landing in crosswinds. Not saying nosewheel won't do the job, but taildraggers are best - and unfortunately much harder to find instruction in.

Soaring is more about energy management than is power flying. The best thing you can do in a power plane, to relate directly to soaring, is haveing your engine quit. A normally less than enjoyable experience which is typically less traumatic if you have a glider rating.

On Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 2:43:20 AM UTC+3, 2G wrote:
I think it is an excellent idea to get some power training before getting glider training. You can get a lot more concepts presented and maneuvers executed in an hour of training in power than you can in a glider.

That's not the case if you are flying gliders in a location with reliable lift -- especially ridge lift. We are often fortunate to be able to do unlimited amounts of turns, stalls, even spins. Those are probably days when the student can't do the tow or landing, but that's why they mix them up!

On Mon, 14 Sep 2015 16:43:16 -0700, 2G wrote:

Besides patterns and landing practice, you can do slow flight, stall
recognition and recovery, and steep banked turns. Most important, I
don't think any of the instruction would be counter productive.

There's possibly one item. One of my club's members added a PPL after
he'd soloed in gliders. He said he had a lot of problems until he
realised there is a fundamental difference that creeps into instructing:
in gliders we nail airspeed and don't much care about height, while power
pilots are taught to nail altitude (thanks to the quadrant rules) and
never mind airspeed variation.

I must say that, when I bought a ride in a Tiger Moth a couple of years
ago I found myself flying the ASI and ignoring the altimeter - and also
automatically heading for the juiciest cloud on track.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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