In rec.aviation.student WJRFlyBoy wrote:
On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:32:07 -0600, Michael Ash wrote:

Maybe I misunderstood. You are relating the advanced disassembly of a
glider with post flight travel arrangements of motorized aircraft as
comparable deficiencies in training?

Sounds like you are unfamiliar with glider assembly/disassembly. There is
nothing "advanced" about it. It's something that all glider pilots are
allowed to do and all should be able to do. On the average day when my
club operates with good soaring conditions, there are several gliders
assembled in the morning and disassembled in the afternoon after the day's
flying is done. The average glider takes two or three people 15-20 minutes
to assemble or disassemble.

Never done one, seen it done only.

Just out of curiosity, what did you see which made you term it as
"advanced"? Certainly I've seen difficult assemblies. There's a big
difference between a couple of experienced people assembling a single
seater for the Nth time and a group trying to assemble a heavy two-seater
which might get this treatment twice a year. Maybe you just got "lucky"
and saw a painful one.

And yes, I am comparing it to the non-flying portions of traveling using a
powered aircraft. If you feel the comparison is not apt, perhaps you could
elaborate.

You said:

Of course this is pretty glider-specific. The equivalent for "normal"
flying would, I imagine, be how to travel with a plane, how to deal with
courtesy cars and arrange transportation at the destination and so forth,
which I've seen talked about here as lamentably un-discussed during
training.

I don't see the comparisons between a manual task that requires physical,
hands-on work and picking up a telephone or using a computer. Relative to
capabilities, the glider would be world's different than the travel
arrangements for me. Others, maybe you, if you were stunted socially, I can
see the latter being more difficult. I am stunted mechanically.

The comparison isn't on what you actually do, it's on how it relates to
your training. Both are highly "practical" knowledge which don't relate
directly to flying. Technically speaking you don't need to know how to
assemble or disassemble a glider to fly one (although the PTS does require
a small bit of knowledge here), just like you don't need to know how to
deal with the logistics at the destination when travelling in an airplane
to fly one. But in both cases, you'll have a tough time doing too much
with your certificate without this knowledge.

In case I didn't explain myself too clearly, here's a post made to this
group a couple of months ago by one of the instructors talking about this
sort of logistical knowledge, and lamenting that it isn't generally
covered during training:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...48afef1266fbff

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software