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Average time to solo a student



 
 
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  #21  
Old June 5th 18, 03:26 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Dan Marotta
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Default Average time to solo a student

My 6th launch was my first solo at Dillingham Field, HI (plenty of
military, airline, GA experience).Â* Thirty-two years later, and on my
7th glider, I'm still the guy who launches first.Â* Who cares if I don't
stay up?Â* I'll launch again and have a great day.Â* Too bad I've only got
another 10-15 years left to fly solo...

On 6/4/2018 11:16 PM, Steve Koerner wrote:
15 starts here. Then three months later off doing intentional cross country. And 42 years more it's still damn fun. Hope the new inductee goes crazy with soaring too.


--
Dan, 5J
  #22  
Old June 6th 18, 04:41 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
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Default Average time to solo a student

On Tuesday, June 5, 2018 at 7:26:22 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
My 6th launch was my first solo at Dillingham Field, HI (plenty of
military, airline, GA experience).Â* Thirty-two years later, and on my
7th glider, I'm still the guy who launches first.Â* Who cares if I don't
stay up?Â* I'll launch again and have a great day.Â* Too bad I've only got
another 10-15 years left to fly solo...

On 6/4/2018 11:16 PM, Steve Koerner wrote:
15 starts here. Then three months later off doing intentional cross country. And 42 years more it's still damn fun. Hope the new inductee goes crazy with soaring too.


--
Dan, 5J


Thanks for all the info & opinions. The info is very useful. Here's additional info.

The student was early thirties & had already completed the King PP ground school. He was very motivated. It was all aero tows, he flew three intense weekends. He had 21 flights when I soloed him & around 9 total hours. We had good lift so were able to do many stalls, steep spirals, etc.

Being that we are a commercial operation we can do accelerated training.
  #24  
Old June 6th 18, 04:48 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Martin Gregorie[_6_]
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Default Average time to solo a student

On Wed, 06 Jun 2018 07:54:26 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

That is terrific for ab initio!

Fastest I ab initio know of is a student who soloed off the winch on a 5
day course last year at my club's flatland site. I first met her when she
was flying dual on a rather 'interesting' hill site:
http://edensoaring.co.uk/ - check out how they describe their field!
This was during a club expedition at the start of October. She seemed to
handle that combination of small field and new glider type (ASK-13) well.


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Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org
  #25  
Old June 6th 18, 10:23 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
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Default Average time to solo a student

On Wednesday, June 6, 2018 at 10:48:23 AM UTC-5, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Wed, 06 Jun 2018 07:54:26 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

That is terrific for ab initio!

Fastest I ab initio know of is a student who soloed off the winch on a 5
day course last year at my club's flatland site. I first met her when she
was flying dual on a rather 'interesting' hill site:
http://edensoaring.co.uk/ - check out how they describe their field!
This was during a club expedition at the start of October. She seemed to
handle that combination of small field and new glider type (ASK-13) well.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org


Martin, she beat me by two days. I soloed on the 7th day and the 28th winch launch at Oerlinghausen, Germany, a well known publicly funded gliding school. Proud to say I was 1st in my group of 7 to solo (in Germany that means you do 3 consecutive flights). I was 30 years old. All flights were done on the winch, glider was ASK 13.
Herb
  #26  
Old June 6th 18, 10:45 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Martin Gregorie[_6_]
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Default Average time to solo a student

On Wed, 06 Jun 2018 14:23:56 -0700, herbkilian wrote:

On Wednesday, June 6, 2018 at 10:48:23 AM UTC-5, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Wed, 06 Jun 2018 07:54:26 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

That is terrific for ab initio!

Fastest I ab initio know of is a student who soloed off the winch on a
5 day course last year at my club's flatland site. I first met her when
she was flying dual on a rather 'interesting' hill site:
http://edensoaring.co.uk/ - check out how they describe their field!
This was during a club expedition at the start of October. She seemed
to handle that combination of small field and new glider type (ASK-13)
well.


--
Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org


Martin, she beat me by two days. I soloed on the 7th day and the 28th
winch launch at Oerlinghausen, Germany, a well known publicly funded
gliding school. Proud to say I was 1st in my group of 7 to solo (in
Germany that means you do 3 consecutive flights). I was 30 years old.
All flights were done on the winch, glider was ASK 13.
Herb


Great stuff, Herb

She almost certainly soloed in an ASK-21, possibly/probably with a few
flights in our Puchacz included since spin training is mandatory here and
the Puchacz spins a lot more readily than an ASK-21. My club hasn't had
ASK-13s since I joined it but IIRC I had a couple of flights in a '13 at
Nympsfield a few months after I soloed and then never saw one again until
I first visited Eden Soaring. I wasn't fond of them at first, but after a
bit of ridge running I now appreciate them a bit mo easy to fly and
not as forgiving as a '21.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org
  #27  
Old June 6th 18, 11:23 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
SoaringXCellence
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Posts: 385
Default Average time to solo a student

All,

As a pilot examiner (USA) for gliders and a 22-year glider instructor, I'd like to add a few points:

In the USA just being able to take-off fly well and land does not fulfill the solo flight requirements in FAR 61.87, there are 19 items! The requirements are to train and LOG the training in each of the 19 elements. I find that many logbooks are not complete with regard to the accurate logging of the training and are often very vague as to what was trained.

I had a student come to me for instruction, who had been signed off for solo, but had never done a stall!! That clearly doesn't meet the requirements and or any logic for safety.

One of the items, #13, is for training in the assembly and dis-assembly of gliders. That one seems to be often left until after the solo. I also find that occasionally I need to contact the CFIG to insure that the training has actually been done, and to get an entry in the logbook to the attest to the training. This is during the practical test!

Another, #18 Procedures and techniques for thermalling, is often weak even in the Commercial pilots that come to me. Proper entry to a thermal, right-of-way and centering are the minimum I expect to be trained, actually being able to gain altitude is a bonus.

Check out the list, I think you'll see several areas that are frequently only lightly touched.

All these omissions are more frequent when the glider operation does not have a closely monitored training process or there are frequent changes of instructor.

OK, I'm stepping down from my soapbox,

Mike Bamberg

  #28  
Old June 7th 18, 12:30 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
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Default Average time to solo a student

In Australia we have this thing called a post solo syllabus, where advanced thermalling and things like rigging are covered.
I don’t see any need to train these pre solo.
  #29  
Old June 7th 18, 04:13 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Papa3[_2_]
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Default Average time to solo a student

Some good dialogue in the thread. The winch discussions reminded me that I actually had a mix of aerotow and autotow (poor man's winch) in my early training. The auto tow was fantastic toward the end of my pre-solo training, since I could shoot 3-4 patterns in a row in rapid succession. In my club, it was very hard to get more than 2 aerotows in a single session due to the schedule constraints. With auto-tow, we could turn around 4 flights in one hour easily during a weekday without needing the towpilot.

So, do many European clubs have a formal process to do something like this? Use aerotow to get some air-time early on to develop the basic stick and rudder skills followed by winch to enable multiple patterns (circuits) cost-effectively.

Just curious,

P3
  #30  
Old June 7th 18, 07:24 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
TND
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Default Average time to solo a student

On Tuesday, June 5, 2018 at 5:30:12 PM UTC+10, Chris Rowland wrote:
Is there a contest to see who can send someone solo the fastest?

In the UK the ATC used to send cadets solo in a tiny number of launches,
something like 20 winch launches. They achieved this by cutting out
everything that wasn't essential, including circuit planning and most
emergencies. Thy were solo but that was all.

The civilian clubs took many more launches, it took me 44 which was pretty
average for a teenager, but had been taught stalling and spinning, launch
failures, circuit planning and soaring. As a result my 4th solo was 20
minutes off the wire for my C certificate.

With the current pre solo syllabus it would be a challenge to get
everything covered in 20 aerotows.

What I tend to tell people after I send them solo is "Now you can learn to
fly". That's how it felt to me, and it still does.

Chris


I soloed in November 1972 with the Air Training Corp at RAF No. 1 Gliding School (I think it was called) at RAF Spitalgate, near Grantham in Lincolnshire (home town of one Margaret Thatcher).

I was the slowest of a group of four, all aged around 17. I can't remember the exact number of flights, and I have long lost the logbook, but I seem to recall that we were scheduled for 30 flights and the others made three solos within that; I took an extra half dozen or so to be cleared.

The training was in a Slingsby T-31 (open cockpit, high wing, tandem). It was all done off 1200 ft winch launches and sleigh rides - no lift in the English flatlands at that time of year. The airfield was so large that we never crossed the boundaries.

We definitely did premature launch terminations and stalls, but to this day I still have the image in my mind of what spin training looked like from the front seat. Being young and fearless I knew no better, but I shudder now at the thought of intentionally spinning from circuit height. Granted, a T-31 doesn't lose a lot, but recovering at 600 ft is bit close to the bone....

The winch signalling was done with an Aldis lamp!

My other great memory, apart from the first solo of course, was my third. I did two solos one afternoon and then the day ended. We awoke the next morning to a blanket of snow. It was the end of the course and I thought I'd had it. The instructors said "What's the problem, there's not a breath of wind". So off I went for a check ride followed by a solo circuit and a smooth landing with the skid swishing in the snow. Never done that since.

-tnd

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