Like so many others I've been following the thread about the organisation and delivery of gliding in Australia with great interest and, given the venomous nature of some of the posts, it's with some apprehension that I toss in some observations. As I sit here late on Boxing Day I can't help mulling over some of the things that attract and repel me about gliding.
I'm new(ish) to flying. I went solo about a month before my 50th birthday. I didn't take up gliding because it was supposed to be cheap. Instead a lifelong interest in aviation and a lifelong involvement in sailing drew me inexorably to motorless flight. Perhaps because I began to dream my dreams a long time ago when options were fewer, I was not drawn to hang, para or other minimalist gliding forms. I used to see myself in a conventionally controlled aircraft using the dynamics of the atmoshphere for getting from place to place. Over twenty five years ago a keen and well known glider pilot sowed a seed which took that long to germinate and grow resulting in my first flight. I was lucky on that flight: a good instructor, reasonable conditions, a bit of lift and a real "hands on" experience. I wanted to do more. I signed up for a residential ab initio course and, if it had gone for a couple more days, would have gone solo there and then. Some things came easy, surprisingly easy. Other things were far, far more difficult than I thought they would be. Since beginning a little over two years ago I have been taught by a reasonable cross section of instructor types - grumpy, courteous, helpful, overbearing, encouraging, serious, humorous, trusting, suspicious, inspiring, diligent, dull - the whole gamut. It's in my nature to try to get something out of every experience and to try to please (or at least not annoy) my instructors. I've got a lot out of it. Like life, I've had to make up my own mind what's valuable and what's not so valuable. Being a computer person I've also got a lot out of newsgroups like this one and rec.aviation.soaring. There are some terrific threads and once again, like life, you have to decide what's likely to be good info and what's not. One of the ways I decide is to get the measure of the person posting. The trouble is, it gets very confusing. Some of the best known (to me anyway) names in gliding post to this group, names I respect, people who post stuff which I file away for reference. To see the posts of these people degenerate into rudeness, dismissiveness, discourtesy, and in some cases bullying, is very destabilising for someone like me still trying to find my way in the sport. I wish it would stop; it's affecting my outlook on gliding. Having got that out of the way, I don't want to risk appearing not to have a point to my post, so I'll make a few observations about the way I'm viewing gliding right now. There are a number of "push" factors which make gliding less attractive for me at the moment. Some are personal and some are systemic. The personal ones are not private, and they may well affect lots of people. I have a young family, a lot of other competing interests and projects, money is tight, my club is a three hour drive away. Add to that the solitary (read selfish) nature of the pasttime. Although I often take my 12 year old son, that has its own significant costs. So what are the more systemic "push" factors? Well, in theory I like the club thing. Mucking in, hangar doors, pie carts, tractors, running wings, fetching, carrying, talking, it's all good fun and very social. But it's slowly dawning on me that it's very reliant on a diminishing pool of volunteers. I fly at the largest club in Australia but we have trouble getting a quorum each weekend. And there's something intangible that I'm finding a bit off-putting. I've seen someone refer to it as the "boy scout" mentality. There's no doubt that the duty personnel are run ragged and some club members seem to compensate by invoking an ethos and an era long gone. A volunteer, one who chooses to be there, often at considerable personal expense, can find him/herself at the sharp end of criticism by both fellow duty people and club members generally. This situation, if not handled sensitively can result in volunteers staying home! While we're on the subject of criticism, I've seldom been in an environment of constant judging. Flying is something I do for fun and self fulfillment. Because of the stage I'm up to I still have regular check flights which I find very wearing. Perhaps it's the pressure I put myself under, but I think I've developed instructor fatigue. Perhaps I need to discuss the aims of a check flight more beforehand. But the constant judging and niggling criticism in an atmosphere where the instructor has ultimate power over whether you fly or not of is simply bad pedagogical technique. I won't even go into the psychology of having the instructor behind you! I'm not sure whether we've got a product problem or a promotion problem. It seems to me that flying a glider is just the most wonderful product and I want to continue purchasing that product. Yet I have had a close look at ultralights recently. There's an active club/commercial operation about 20 minutes from me. They seem to be having a great deal of fun. They are doing a hell of a lot of aviation. I had a fly in a Skyfox Gazelle. It was a lot of fun. It was close to home. All up, the flight cost me a significantly less than a three hour trip. It's not cross country soaring which is what I aspire to, but I didn't run into any "air commodores" either and the instructor sat beside me (a small but significant point). I think that doing more ultralighting will help me. It's aviation, it's fun, it's close to home, it's reasonably priced and the company's good. I simply don't know whether the GFA as an organisation is part of my dilemma of ambivalence. I feel confident that I'm getting excellent training at my club by instructors who care for the sport and for my progress through it. But I take the point that it seems strange that the whole thrust of gliding is training, that the person in charge of all gliding operations at a field is styled an "instructor". I'm desparately keen to see the various directions this thread takes. I just hope that folks with observations to make (however obscure their point is) are not bullied out of having their say. Patrick -- * You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list. * To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message * or with "help" in the body of the message for more information.
