XC Mentorship Events

All -

There's been some recent discussion on training XC pilots; and there was also a little bit of feedback in the Nephi thread about XC learning/mentoring.. So I wanted to share info about an event that our Region has been doing to encourage XC flying. Hopefully it sparks someone's interest in doing a version of our event in their local area... And if so, please don't hesitate to reach out to me - I'm happy to provide info and resources!

For the last 6 years, I've been one of the primary organizers of "The Dust Up". Originally the brain-child of a local pilot who wanted to encourage contest flying, its evolved into an XC mentorship event. Every few years we hold a 3-day mock-contest to give people a low-pressure intro to Regionals; but most years we do the XC mentorship, and that consistently draws more participation (30+ entrants each year).

BEFORE THE EVENT
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We tend to hold the event over Memorial Day weekend, so we start planning back in January/February. At one of the main club's meetings, we put on a 60-90 minute presentation in March, April, and May. Each seminar focuses on a different aspect of XC flying: from pilot & aircraft preparation, to final glides & landouts, to planning your first XC flight, and delving a little bit into flight loggers & flight-analysis for future improvement. The key is to get folks reading books and online articles in the winter/spring months, and preparing their ship ahead of time so they can show up at the site ready to fly.

We also do online/email RSVPs ahead of time, to get an approximate count of participants. When signing up, we ask pilots to pick one of 3 or 4 categories that broadly describes their level of XC experience. We use this to build up a plan for the event - we arrange for a certain amount of mentors to be on-site (who have lots of XC experience), and we also arrange for some XC-capable dual ships to be on-site.

AT THE EVENT
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Like at a contest, we have pilot briefings every day. This is critically important to safety, as well as to ensure everyone understands the operations & expected weather. On the second and third days, we make sure to call out 1 or 2 less-experienced pilots who had a great flight. We try to get them to stand up and explain where they went or what they did, as their pride and excitement rubs off on others (the "if he can do it, so can I" effect).

We typically get 4-5 XC-capable two-seaters to show up from regional clubs and private individuals - everything from PW-6's to G013's to DG-1000's. We try to launch the dual ships early-enough that they can go do a 2-3 hour flight, land, and then take off again on another 2-3 hour flight with a different "student". Each flight is intended to be roughly Silver-badge-distance (100-150km). The idea is to give an overview of the in-flight skills necessary to interpret the sky/clouds, work lift, and make it to a goal & home. Over 3 days we wind up giving ~20-25 XC flights and really opening the eyes of folks to what's possible.

For those with access to a single-seater and a little bit of XC expereince, we try to assign mentors to each pilot and encourage them to do pre-flight and post-flight planning together. A few try to lead-and-follow; others just provide air-to-air communications once the flying begins. For these folks the intention is to ensure they're comfortable with the local area and any intricacies, can properly understand the weather and their likely flight options, and give them someone to call and rely-on if they experience trepidation or have questions during their flight. We want to encourage them to try for personal bests in terms of distance or altitude, even if that just means getting to Silver-badge distance or achieving a longer-duration flight. Any accomplishment, no matter how small, is a confidence-booster and lowers their resistance/hesitance to "try for more" on the next flight. :-)

For pilots with a modicum of XC experience, we also provide some pre-planned silver badge flights; and for experienced pilots we sometimes outline long flights (to distant waypoints, or a 500km triangle, or such). If anyone wants to go for their silver or gold badge, we try to get a couple of the mentor-pilots to act as OOs and make the process as easy as possible. We get those folks together the night before and fill out as much of the paperwork before the flight as we can - as well as checking whatever logger they're going to use. That way all they have to do the next morning is focus on flight-prep and doing the actual flight.

After all the day's flights are over, we make sure to have a Potluck on one night and a donation-dinner on the other. Providing these reasons to gather and socialize is critical to the success of the event! It gives the newer pilots a chance to crow about their accomplishments and/or express wonderment at their learning. This seems to also jazz up the experienced XC folks, seeing new people get turned on to the subject that they're already passionate about. Lots of good informal debriefing and encouragement goes on over dinner; as much of an individual sport as soaring is, that socialization aspect is a big value-add for folks - especially those who look up to accomplished pilots and want to expand their knowledge and skill. Dinner acts as an informal atmosphere for free-ranging discussion, and seems to make experts seem more approachable by the newbies.

Oh, I personally also try to arrange it so myself and a couple of other pilots have their laptops out towards the end of dinner. If possible, I bring up OLC and look at flights... That way we can gently encourage the newbies to post their flights; no matter how trivial they are. I try to physically help post them if I can, so the pilots get immediate feedback and positive reinforcement. :-)

A note about fees: We tend not to charge anything for the event beyond normal tiedown and tow fees. Experience has shown that *any* entry-fee reduces interest a lot. We can charge $10 - $20 and get only 15 entrants; or we can charge nothing and get 30+. We actually make more by providing decent food and encouraging healthy donations for the meal. Smart meal prep - and occasional donation of the raw foodstuffs themselves - keeps costs low enough that 40-60 donations of ~$15-$20 each clears our food costs plus a few hundred dollars. Yes, it requires some volunteer labor to do the cooking and arrange for the consumables; but in our experience it is well worth the effort.

Noel,

You need to mention that Chris is the Chef for the dinner, the attendance would really go up!

On Monday, July 21, 2014 7:44:41 PM UTC-7, SoaringXCellence wrote:
Noel,



You need to mention that Chris is the Chef for the dinner, the attendance would really go up!

Yes, but sadly we can't afford to ship Chris around the country to other people's XC mentorship events. ;-) ...Between the Ephrata clubhouse and a few of the cooks (like Chris and also Becky Newgard), we certainly have some advantages up in Region 8!

On a slightly-more-serious note: Even with Chris cooking both types of event, its worth noting that the mock-contest format draws about 1/2 the total entrants as the free-to-enter Mentorship events. So I really see the event format itself being a big attraction.

--Noel

I would love to see something like this happen in all areas of the country. Even just a few days of cross country camps before a regional contest would help new pilots cross the intimidating gap towards flying cross country and contests.

Thanks for making that detailed posting, Noel. We've talked about putting on a similar event, but on a much more limited, club only basis. Perhaps we can make it happen in 2015, using your ideas. I'll be in touch off-line.

-John, Q3

On Tuesday, July 22, 2014 6:41:30 AM UTC-7, John Carlyle wrote:
Thanks for making that detailed posting, Noel. We've talked about putting on a similar event, but on a much more limited, club only basis. Perhaps we can make it happen in 2015, using your ideas. I'll be in touch off-line.



-John, Q3

John, I look forward to hearing from you!

IMHO, advertising it to all the clubs within your state/region is a very good thing:

First, you get more participation and that means a better social scene with more interaction and cross-pollination. You make the event a "destination" for groups of people - and inviting other clubs means they're more likely to bring their club fleet; which brings more club participants out.

Second, you are more likely to get additional 2-seaters. Those dual rides are important for showing first-timers what an XC flight is like (taking away some of the fear-factor), and they're great for teaching/demonstrating specific cloud-reading or thermalling skills to XC newbies.

Third, if you can bring some additional clubs out to the party, you have a shot at getting them to bring their towplane. More tugs = a faster launch and therefore more/longer flights for everyone. Pro-tip: Agree on a standard tow-fee and then charge the same for everyone who takes a tow that weekend; that way you don't have to set up separate launch lines or deal with people jockeying to get behind a certain tug. There are many details to iron out with respect to the billing and club memberships - but most can be handled relatively easily (contact me offline and I can help you through any/all of this). If all the clubs involved use Costello for insurance and everyone is an SSA member, then the insurance/liability side of things is essentially a non-issue.

Finally, involving multiple clubs in an area lets you cherry-pick the best site. If your area has a really interesting or well-developed soaring site (especially one that has reliable soaring conditions, or benign terrain, or lots of landout options) then you can really draw lots of folks to that one site for this event. People that have a good time will likely return for more flights there - boosting participation at the site.

Enjoy,

--Noel