How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?

Speaking as a pre-solo student with aspirations of doing XC I love the idea of creating at least a couple of levels. I don't know if we'd have enough contestants to fill six at my club, but at least a couple would work.

At our club there are some accomplished XC pilots that are incredibly nice and giving with knowledge. But the idea of 'competing' with them on a task that is designed to be challenging to them is quite intimidating. Of course I wouldn't expect to be at or close the bottom but if I don't have the experience I might not have a good idea as to my (or my planes) limits so the chances of me landing out trying because I thought I could make it would increase a lot.

It would be great to have a task that would challenge me (and other inexperienced XC'ers) without making it too easy for the competent ones. This could be a subset of turn points that make up a larger task. The more experienced groups progressively have more turn points/areas...

just my 0.5c

Dan

Some great ideas being discussed. Most require a "sparkplug" or two and a lot of dedication and time, and take a while to show positive results. Often those who are most interested in XC and competition are the least inclined to organize and drive these efforts although they're quite happy to support them.

Some years ago there was an annual intro-to-XC event held at Philadelphia Glider Council's facility. Classroom sessions (IIRC, Roy McMaster came down for it) followed by several task options with mentors, each of whom flew with 1-3 "students". A couple of students with a little more experience had Doug Jacobs as their mentor one year! Several of us who had been volunteered as mentors tried to convince the organizers that we could benefit more from flying with Doug than our students could with us.

Yes, obviously the participants had to have access to their own gliders, but many (most?) private owners don't fly cross country that much so this effort was targeted at them. One weekend enjoyed particularly good weather, which allowed us to get out on course and gain some real experience, including students getting low. Weather is obviously a huge imponderable when planning ahead.

I don't know what the stats were regarding effectiveness of the program but the Governor's Cup--a season-long competition around common courses in the PA/NJ/NY area anchored by half a dozen gliderports including PGC--took off about then and was a big draw for pilots of widely varying abilities.

One thing to keep in mind: it's not just exposing people to soaring and then converting them. I honestly don't know what the attrition rates are but we seem to lose a lot of pilots who are active for a while and then drop away. Having been out of soaring three times over the years, I can say it can be tough to stay with it no matter how much you enjoy it. It's expensive, takes an inordinate amount of time, isn't always family friendly, and is a lot of work. Yes, the truly motivated will persevere. It's the mortal rest of us who are sometimes diverted, not always by choice.

I've resumed soaring three times after lapses of 5, 3, and nearly 4 years and it's pretty daunting. HUGE thanks to Hank Nixon (already lauded for his work) and Erik Mann (heavily involved in the PGC experiment and driver of the G-Cup) who have kept in touch even when I wasn't flying, aided enormously when I undertook comebacks on my own, and provided the spark (shove) to get me moving the last time when I needed encouragement. The days of "paying your dues" by working your way up the ladder painfully slowly and "if someone really wants to fly badly enough, they'll find a way" are long past. There are too many other demands for our time/money in today's world.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

At 20:05 17 August 2015, Dan Stroschine wrote:
Speaking as a pre-solo student with aspirations of doing XC I love the
idea=
of creating at least a couple of levels. I don't know if we'd have
enough
=
contestants to fill six at my club, but at least a couple would work.=20

At our club there are some accomplished XC pilots that are incredibly
nice
=
and giving with knowledge. But the idea of 'competing' with them on a
task
=
that is designed to be challenging to them is quite intimidating. Of
course=
I wouldn't expect to be at or close the bottom but if I don't have the
exp=
erience I might not have a good idea as to my (or my planes) limits so
the
=
chances of me landing out trying because I thought I could make it would
in=
crease a lot.=20

It would be great to have a task that would challenge me (and other
inexper=
ienced XC'ers) without making it too easy for the competent ones. This
coul=
d be a subset of turn points that make up a larger task. The more
experienc=
ed groups progressively have more turn points/areas...

just my 0.5c

Dan

This is exactly what handicap distance tasks where designed to, and do,
achieve

On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 10:33:39 PM UTC+3, Frank Whiteley wrote:
The SSA Group Plan does not allow club/chapter scenic passengers to manipulate the controls. Hence the FAST program.

The opposite in New Zealand. Scenic flights are not allowed. If you do not offer use of the controls during the flight then you are in danger of being reclassified as a commercial operation, not a club, and that means a whole other (much more onerous) maintenance and regulatory regime.

Hey Sean,

My club (Aero Club Albatross in Blairstown, NJ) does a great job inspiring pilots to take up cross country soaring. This is due to several reasons.

1) Cross Country flying is encouraged in club equipment.
2) There is an active group of cross country pilots that fly often, which consistently shows what can be done.
3) The social scene encourages people to stick around after landing, which helps in mentoring new folks and almost guaranteeing that someone will retrieve you if you land out.
4) Landouts are treated as an accomplishment, rather than a hassle and a burden.

One of the big reasons that my club is so relaxed about cross country flying in club equipment is due to its two 1-26Es. If you would like to get XC approved, the rules are quite simple. Get your Silver climb and duration in the 1-26 and then you are approved to do a Silver Distance. After completing your silver badge in a 1-26, you are free to fly XC in any glider that you are approved to fly.

This arrangement works out very nicely because the low-time pilots cut their teeth in a glider that is cheap, safe and durable. If they land out, they are unlikely to hurt it and if they do incur some minor damage, it isn't a big deal to the club because at the end of the day, it's still a 1-26. As a result, ACA encourages people to get on out there and fly rather than being reticent about cutting them loose.

Flying cross country in club equipment is a big reason why we retain membership. Our fleet allows people to progress from Schweizers through sleek German glass at low cost. It makes it a lot easier for people to really try out the sport and get hooked rather than being faced with the daunting decision of having to buy a glider before they are really ready to go headfirst into this activity.

I am forever thankful that I am fortunate enough to be a member of such an awesome club and incredible soaring site.

Daniel

On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 12:49:08 PM UTC-4, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 12:18:03 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Great post! The concept of a "catalyst" or "spark plug" is very important. It's also hard to quantify. It sometimes can be under-rated how important these kinds of people can be to local growth in many sports or groups.. The kind of person who gives time, knowhow and encouragement and basically does whatever it takes to help others move forward (short of paying their bills).

Perhaps we need to more actively recognize and appreciate these folks wherever they may be at our annual convention. They are probably the glue that holds the sport together right now!

Sean

Not sure whom this was directed to..... but.... I know Hank has been honored before as has Dianne (by SSA).
VSC (as well as HHSC) have been honored in the past for their junior programs as well (by SSA).
In fact, I believe these 2 sites usually via against each other for their junior programs.

You are correct though, ANY site can "help promote the sport"! All it takes is one or more people that see a stranger, walk up and say, "Hi, how are you? Do you have any questions??" Some new people are hesitant to talk to strangers at a strange place (what could be stranger than flying, with some of us that are at the airport??, LOL......)

Sad but true story.....
I used to travel a LOT, I had a free weekend in the SW US. Went to a "local but known site" hoping I could do a flight/share costs for a cross country flight (I know they have great weather compared to the NE US).
I had generic clothes on, but a hat with a Gold "C" & 2 Diamonds pin on the front.
I hung around for a couple hours, helped move some gliders, etc.
Not ONCE did ANYONE come up to me and ask, "Hi, how are you? Do you have any questions??".
I had decided to see what they did as well as see if they picked up on the pin.
Needless to say, I didn't spend any money there...... At least, while it looked decent, overheard conversations were that it was not too good a day, thus I didn't push it.

I do think we sometimes make it more complicated than we need to. There's no silver bullet - it's a lot of hard work by a relatively few people that typically moves the ball forward. I suspect (though I don't have data to prove it) that my local SSA Region (Region 2) does disproportionately well in terms of getting folks into XC. That has to do with basically 2 or 3 locations that really go out of their way to mentor XC pilots, two Regionals (Mifflin and Wurtsboro) that really cater to newcomers, a very active decentralized contest (the Governor's Cup) and a few people who work really hard to push newcomers to "convert".

I don't think equipment is as much of a problem as some folks would like to believe. It would be nice, since it would "just" mean more money.

If I get around to it I'll publish the results of a survey I did two years ago. At least in this region, a surprising number of pilots do go XC, though not that many of them participate in either contests or the OLC.

Erik Mann (P3)

On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 9:16:18 AM UTC-4, ND wrote:

Morning Sean,

I think your comments about mirroring european soaring clubs definitely has some merit. At harris hill, I think a huge thing for our club is that we have a discus CS, and a Duo Discus, as well as a number of pilots who are active in cross country as a baseline. Even if your father/grandfather is not involved in this case, you still end up with access to high performance equipment, and people to guide you along.

my first cross country was with roy mcmaster in our duo. after about 5-7 cross country flights on my own, i flew a HUGE flight (for me at the time) with tim welles and he offered some pointers. i did the flying, he critiqued, and i saw that if i made the right decisions i could go fly cross country all afternoon too.

also, harris hill offers two gliders to junior members free of hourly charge: the discus CS and the SGS 1-34. for those reasons, we are able to expose our junior members to flying and make it very attractive to them from a cost standpoint. so we're getting a younger crowd involved. we have four members under 25 right now who have completed silver badges, and several more who are on their way with one or two of the legs done. The majority of them aren't from soaring families. bottom line, make it affordable, and give them access to the equipment. No way could my dad have afforded normal flying lessons for me when i was a teen. harris hill offered instructional flights when i was junior 13 years ago for 3 bucks a flight. that was offset with commercial rides, and subsidized by senior member rates.

as far as drawing adults to the cross country aspect, it needs to be turnkey, people need the have the ability to advance quickly if they want so that they dont get bored. a good training program is helpful. we do instruction every wednesday night during the flying months so that senior members can get focused weekly instruction. in the winter we do a condor night, where we set up a server and 6-8 members join and fly a cross country flight. we always debrief those and talk about the decision making. it gets everyone involved juiced up for spring.

the formula is the same in your example as mine. there needs to be equipment available, and mentors available. one reason we see people getting into cross country at harris hill is because there are several people who go on a regular basis. it creates a cross country environment. tim welles (W3) is an ironman and flies more regularly, and and in poorer weather, than most.. i think it takes a catalyst in that regard. you need people who can shepherd and motivate others.

HHSC is not the only one doing this.....

Valley Soaring in Middletown, NY (where I fly) does similar.

It started back in the '70's with the commercial operation (also called Valley Soaring) by helping out "kids".
Basically, work a day, get a flight.
Some regulars added some money to a "pot" to help offset some of the costs as well.
This operation was started by Hank Nixon, his wife Dianne & Herb Reilly until it was turned into a club.
Hank & I own SGS-1-26 SN 002 which we let juniors use for "free". They cut the grass in the tiedown, wash the glider, etc.
Junior members at VS pay lower dues and tow rates. Instruction is also a lower rate.

Once they get some more flying time, there are quite a few pilots that fly cross country and will lead other pilots around and help out.
We also take people for cross country in a ASK-21 from our field as well as at contests so they can get a better idea of what goes on.

During the summer, we try to have at least one picnic/month so the "none flying" members of a family can come out and see some of what the "flying member" does for the day.

All of this has been modeled after Euro clubs and tweaked a bit for our site.

Maybe Sean just has not seen some of what IS going on in clubs/operations in the US.

As to "rides" for new people, we usually try and let them do some of the flying while up.
The resulting grin is usually rather large.

PS, yes, I've flown at HHSC lots of times. Many times for the Snowbird as well as contests held there.

PPS, I started flying there in the early '70's, so the current club is the 3rd entity I've flown with at the same airport.

On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 5:14:20 PM UTC-6, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 10:33:39 PM UTC+3, Frank Whiteley wrote:
The SSA Group Plan does not allow club/chapter scenic passengers to manipulate the controls. Hence the FAST program.

The opposite in New Zealand. Scenic flights are not allowed. If you do not offer use of the controls during the flight then you are in danger of being reclassified as a commercial operation, not a club, and that means a whole other (much more onerous) maintenance and regulatory regime.

Interesting approach. The baseline for insurance here is commercial coverage. Under our SSA Group Plan, a club with 100% SSA members receives a discount, but will have some constraints, e.g., rides okay by current commercial rated pilot (and other FAA compliance such as Type Certificated glider, 100-hour inspections) but membership required to manipulate the controls. There are other insurance options, and other approaches. At least one club requires all members to have renter/non-owner insurance. This also allows members to fly with local commercial operations. This coverage is included under our group plan for private owners up to the insured limits of their hull value. The thinking behind the ride coverage is expectation of performance when the passenger pays for the service and how will the courts find that this expectation is met in case of a claim.

Frank Whiteley

On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 2:43:38 AM UTC+3, wrote:
One of the big reasons that my club is so relaxed about cross country flying in club equipment is due to its two 1-26Es. If you would like to get XC approved, the rules are quite simple. Get your Silver climb and duration in the 1-26 and then you are approved to do a Silver Distance. After completing your silver badge in a 1-26, you are free to fly XC in any glider that you are approved to fly.

Things work a bit differently at my club.

I'm not aware of any formal requirement to demonstrate soaring ability in order to go cross country. The requirement is to demonstrate ability to make a circuit and short precision landing over an obstacle (fence at least) to a place you haven't previously landed. This could be an unused corner of the airfield, or a nearby field with a friendly farmer (bonus points if it's far enough away in a suitable direction that you might actually need it in anger later). Cross country ratings are given for each glider type -- you might be allowed to take the PW5 cross country, but only fly the DG1000 locally.

On Tue, 18 Aug 2015 03:04:30 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:

On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 2:43:38 AM UTC+3,
wrote:
One of the big reasons that my club is so relaxed about cross country
flying in club equipment is due to its two 1-26Es. If you would like to
get XC approved, the rules are quite simple. Get your Silver climb and
duration in the 1-26 and then you are approved to do a Silver Distance.
After completing your silver badge in a 1-26, you are free to fly XC in
any glider that you are approved to fly.

Things work a bit differently at my club.

I'm not aware of any formal requirement to demonstrate soaring ability
in order to go cross country. The requirement is to demonstrate ability
to make a circuit and short precision landing over an obstacle (fence at
least) to a place you haven't previously landed. This could be an unused
corner of the airfield, or a nearby field with a friendly farmer (bonus
points if it's far enough away in a suitable direction that you might
actually need it in anger later). Cross country ratings are given for
each glider type -- you might be allowed to take the PW5 cross country,
but only fly the DG1000 locally.

In the UK a lot of the preliminaries are covered by the BGA's Bronze
Badge, which as two parts:

Part 1
- 50 solo flights or 20 flights and 10 hours
- two soaring flights of 30mins each off a winch or 60mins from an aero
tow of 2000ft or less
- followed by
- three check flights with an instructor including stall&spin
checks, launch failure recovery
- two demonstrated field landings with altimeter covered.
May be done on the airfield but using a part that isn't a usual
landing area or approach
- a written test on Air Law and General flying
- the lot to be completed within 12 months.

Part 2 (XC endorsement)
- a one hour and a two hour soaring flight
- field selection, field landing and navigation exercises,
usually done in a motor glider.

At my club a new solo pilot converts to the SZD Juniors after 5 solos and
flying checks on the ASK-21 and almost immediately starts working on the
Bronze Badge, which gives them something concrete to aim at after solo.
They are encouraged to start work on their Silver Badge at the same time,
because both Silver height gain and duration can be done without leaving
the home field and, if conditions are suitable, Silver distance can be
attempted as soon as the Bronze XC endorsement has been signed off.

Then they're encouraged to go for the BGA 100km diploma, usually in a
club single seater (we have two Juniors, Pegase 90, Discus and ASW-24).
The 100 km diploma has 2 parts (a) flying the 100 km as a triangle or out
& return and (b) a similar flight with a handicapped speed of 65km/h or
faster. I did both parts in the club Pegase in a single flight on a
really good day: flew a 109km triangle, turned round and went round it
again in the opposite direction. The second time round was fast enough
for part B.

Last but not least, there's the InterClub League, in which the clubs in a
locality fly in a series of weekend competitions, with each club hosting
one of them. Each club enters teams of three:
- pundit (anybody can fly - no experience restrictions)
- intermediate (must not have flown a 500km Diamond distance or a
Nationals level competition)
- novice (must not have flown a 300km Gold task or a rated competition)

It seems to me that the InterClub League format might be something that
would work well in the US scene since it involves relatively small tasks,
lets pilots at various levels compete against each other and gives them
the experience of flying from different fields.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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