Great to see posts from Yannick and this from Andrew.
My Club Caboolture is like that Sydney Club and has Brisbane to the
south and under 3500' CTA and limited XC options. In our training, we
refer to cross country in our circuit training (covering the altimeter)
and actively send our members out to the inland cross country clubs
DDSC, Kingaroy, Boonah and Warwick after training them to go solo and
get off daily checks. In addition, I usually organise a week every
year for our members at DDSC and so we realise that we are a feeder club.
As an instructor, it is really great to see our ex-members at the other
clubs so our club is not growing per se but if you include all our
ex-members at other clubs, we are! :-)
PeterS
On 28/08/2010 3:32 PM, Andrew Hallam wrote:
Hi All,
Interesting discussion, especially since I am one of those new members who is
deciding whether or not to continue with gliding.
Caveat: My (lack of) experience and my personal situation may, or may not, be
representative of others making similar decisions.
I started gliding last year at age 42. I now have 21 hours solo time (10
flights), and have been fortunate to complete flights that meet all Silver C
requirements. So far it has been lot of fun, and resulted in a great sense of
achievement. From what I understand, I also approached learning to fly gliders
a little differently than most. (The journey so far is partly documented at
http://www.hallam.id.au/journal/2009/11/3/learning-to-fly-gliders.html.)
I still have a *lot* to learn. I now need to decide whether to invest the time
and money in that learning. That means thinking about what the future looks
like if I do continue with gliding, and making a call on the opportunity costs.
While the idea of flying in competitions is enticing I'm unlikely to be a
serious or regular competition pilot due to my age, the limited number of hours
I can fly each year, and the cost of a reasonable glider. Therefore, thinking
of soaring as a sport might not be realistic, for me.
The most likely path, for me, seems to be treating soaring as more of a hobby.
Flying when I can, setting my own tasks, and maybe posting a few flights on
OLC. Competition flying is likely to be an occasional bonus rather than a
regular thing. I am wondering if that is going to be enough to keep me
interested.
If I do continue, some of the things I'd like to experience while finishing my
Glider Pilot Certificate are:
- More cross country soaring. Learning by doing via coaching in a dual seater
or pair flying with an experienced pilot.
- Graduating to a higher performance single seater (doesn't have to be the
latest and greatest,
just good enough to maximise my enjoyment at my skill level).
- Flying in a competition as a passenger in a dual seater.
- More training on all aspects of safety.
- More learning about soaring weather.
Longer term:
- Some form of competition/challenge that encourages low hours pilots to
improve their skills (safely).*
- Organised flying with pilots of similar experience.
*Formal badge claims don't really interest me at this point, unless they are
needed to convey my level of experience to others.
As others have said, to the newcomer there appears to be a large nebulous gap
between solo and elite competition. Working out what your realistic options
are, and therefore what you can get out of soaring, can be difficult. If you
don't understand what you can achieve, it is more difficult to commit the time
and money to find out.
Feedback is welcome.
Andrew
On 27/08/2010, at 11:09 PM, Tim Shirley wrote:
Paul has said it all, and Mike B has made similar comments. We need to switch
people on to the sport of gliding. Not the grind of doing circuits and going
solo, but all the challenges that are available from unpowered soaring flight.
Cross-country, wave soaring, competitions, badges, records. The fun stuff.
We are not a low-cost flying training organisation – at least, we are not
today. Gliding is a SPORT and should be marketed as such. If we want to give
scholarships, we should be looking at the incentive to continue, not just the
incentive to start. For example, by paying for early X/C pilots to go to
coaching camps or to their first competitions. That’s what will hook them.
Whereas a few free training flights won’t help, because the money runs out
before the fun starts.
Being a sport means that the customers we target will be different, and should
include other flying disciplines, especially those where there is limited
sporting challenge. Long term participation in our sport needs people to have
resources, including time and money as well as dedication, enthusiasm and
commitment.
When I take a TIF I spend most of the time talking about the possibilities. I
chat about the competitions, the long flights people do, the fun of wave
flying. Anything to turn them on to the challenge, and away from the
impossible question “how much does it cost to learn?”.
Yes, we have people who only want to soar gracefully above the airfield for a
couple of hours. Yes, we have people who want to restore and fly vintage
sailplanes. Yes, we need instructors to train newcomers. And all of that is
terrific. But it’s not the right marketing pitch – which should be, that this
sport is seriously challenging, physically and mentally demanding, and above
all, heaps of FUN!
Cheers
Tim
se sono rose, fioriranno
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