Great Story in this month's AOPA Pilot by Rick Durden

(Michael) wrote:

No, it doesn't. It glider training cost depends on the individual operation, be it club or
commercial. Don't assume the commercial operation costs more

I'd agree with this. It's been my experience that
commercial usually costs more, but it's not always the case.

That's disingenuous. Most training flights are 20 minutes or less.
At $20 to 3000 and $12/hr, that's $72/hr before we even figure in the
initiation fee or the monthly dues. When training, the biggest cost
is the tow - not the glider rental.

True again, but I don't think figuring cost per hour for
training in a glider makes much sense. Landings and tows
are the hard part for the ab-intio and transition student.
Once you've learned those parts, though, hourly cost is
relevant, and that's where the cost drops since you are
making longer flights learning to soar or go XC and your
cost is way down.

Assuming you can get the glider for that long (most operations have a
1 or 2 hour limit)... Only guess what -
at most clubs and commercial operations, if you want to go XC you have
to buy your own glider.

This is just as variable as the cost. Some clubs have
gliders to spare. I was in one club where the glider I
wanted to fly was never in use. Perhaps one day in three, I
had to share half the day with someone else. Some clubs are
very XC friendly.

I used to belong to a glider club that supposedly allowed XC in club
gliders. The process required to get approval was such that nobody
had done it in years.

I was in a club where no one had flown XC for years. I just
had to make it clear that I wanted to go XC. No one else
understood XC flying. They weren't trying to stop it, they
just didn't make any effort to make it easy.

If you can't afford your own glider and plan to
join a club, find out in advance if that's the way it is there too,
before you plunk down the money.

All the clubs I've joined were either low cost to join, or
easy to sell the share and recover my money.

Of course at most glider clubs the instruction is 'free' (meaning that
you're dragging gliders around in the hot sun, washing gliders,
cutting grass, and doing other menial work as 'club duty') while at a
commercial operation, instructors expect to be paid.

I currently own my own glider, and fly at a commercial site
but I still push gliders a lot, hold wings, cut grass around
my trailer, retrieve other pilots when they land out, and do
most of the same things I did in a club.

But glider
instructors are very rarely in it for the money.

That's the truth :-)

if you're really broke and would rather work
for your instruction than pay for it (which is what happens at a club)
you can always find someone who will instruct in exchange for having
his airplane, glider, or trailer washed.

This is pretty difficult. Commercial operator's usually
don't want outside instructors teaching in their gliders and
the employed instructors can't cut that deal. If you want
to work as a lineboy for a flight at the end of the day,
it's harder than the club duty. :-)


Todd Pattist
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