Average time to solo a student

I have to say that after learning on airtow, Im very glad I went on to do several years of winch launching, I learnt very valuable lessons in flying low,
after simulated cable breaks and highly modified circuits. I would recommend it to any glider pilot.
The acceleration can be a bit intmidating at first, but soon becomes your best friend.

On Tue, 05 Jun 2018 04:19:38 -0700, mikestandishmic wrote:

I have to say that after learning on airtow, Im very glad I went on to
do several years of winch launching, I learnt very valuable lessons in
flying low,
after simulated cable breaks and highly modified circuits. I would
recommend it to any glider pilot.
The acceleration can be a bit intmidating at first, but soon becomes
your best friend.

I learnt to fly on a winch - same club as Paul. I was 52 at the time and
took 80 launches to solo - pretty much in line with the rule of thumb
that was told me "pilot age in years + 30".

This also included a no-instrument launch, circuit and landing plus pre-
solo stall and spin training all - done off the winch in an ASK-21
*without* tail weights because our paid instructor that year knew how to
spin a '21 at our combined cockpit load without them. I should say that
spinning was done after thermal climbs to a suitable altitude - it was a
rather good summer. I might equally have done spin training in a Puchacz
(we had and have one and I was introduced to it at 20th launch) - pre-
solo I regularly flew all our two seaters at the time (T.21, G103,
ASK-21, Puchacz).


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org