As occurs in other parts of gliding, the issue of pilot responsibility vs club/instructor ’supervision’ has many constituent parts.
- the existing fiction is that the national body ‘controls’ the sport whereas a reality is that at each individual flying site the control/supervision relies on local circumstance. example from my own life: an individual chiding me for operating on a Council owned public aerodrome and trying to exercise control by asserting a formal position within the national gliding hierarchy when in that circumstance in law only an employee of the Council could do that. - where a gliding club controls a flying site, by lease or ownership, their interest in ‘control’ is about maintaining their reputation in their community. So that you as a visiting pilot don’t do something that puts their butt in a sling for the future. - where you are intending to use a gliding club asset - glider or launch method - the club has an interest in that asset being cared for; in many cases this ‘check’ is foisted onto the duty instructor to achieve this - where (motor)gliding is operating with other aviation forms, there is the constant baseline of query (‘what, you switch the engine off?’) which puts the perception of gliding amongst fellow (sport)aviators in the mix; necessitating an extra level of considerate collegiate behaviour; again a club might place the onus for that behaviour compliance on the duty instructor - beyond this are the more direct impositions on pilot and instructor: what are the local expectations of capability. in some places airspace/radio monitoring is irrelevant, in some you can’t go cross country because of terrain, in some local places special requirements apply (mountain sites with unique wind and downdraught patterns, etc.) let alone piloting skill norms - can (s)he fly the particular type, in what weather limits, is the flying by rote or sensitive to the available soaring potential (lift lines, thermals, wave, slope, etc.) A ‘certificate’, ‘license’, ‘rating’ is applied across these. Boring holes in the sky, steady speed, altitude and awareness of procedure, radio, traffic is one thing. Gliding is so much more; which is why people do it. Thank you for the inputs. Something to think about. Emilis On 6 Feb 2017, at 11:04 am, Greg Wilson <[email protected]> wrote: > If we really want to stop the dwindling numbers in gliding, giving pilots > responsibility for their flying is a very good place to start as it increases > the likelihood of attracting other pilots into the sport.
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