On Aug 23, 11:08*pm, RAS56 wrote:
Folks,

Thanks for all the thoughts and replies, this is exactly the type of
discussion I was hoping I would generate.

Let me be more explicit wrt my quals...I'm a newly minted Bronze
badge-holder with a strong desire to cut the apron strings. I have a
large amount of power experience, but have only flown gliders for the
last two years and have less than 100 glider hours.

Contests sound like a great venue to improve my skills, but my
understanding is most if not all want pilots showing up with their
Silver badge done or an equivalent level of experience. I'm not there
yet. (and Tony, if you're the Tony who's wing I ran at Region 10, Great
Job in that Cherokee! Hope you enjoyed the contest and flying at Llano!)

Soaring at Minden sounds like a great option, heck I'm already seriously
considering towing my steed (ASW-19b) up there to do the Air Sailing
camp, but the distance is daunting. Dalhart sounds interesting if some
leader/follower flights can be done. I've done one of those this year
here in Central Texas, had a blast and learned a bunch...but the
coordination with todays work situations to get it scheduled to say
nothing of asking a much better pilot "dumbing down" his flying for me
to keep up...is a lot to ask.

The structure/syllabus presented at Air Sailing appeals to me...a set of
objectives and learning goals, pre-stated....it matches what I
experience in my flying day jobs training department. I like that
approach better than a "strap in and go fly" approach that one can learn
from...but doesn't do as an effective job in my opinion. If something
like they present is out there somewhere (the Dalhart suggestion maybe?)
or perhaps another club famous for minting xc pilots, I'd appreciate the
point out.

Thanks again and for all the suggestions...and a note to John Cochrane,
I have really enjoyed reading the soaring section of your website. Lots
of good gouge on there and I'm having a hard time finding room on the
cranial hard drive for it all!

Rob

--
RAS56

At the risk of inciting a flame war, I would also suggest you get a
copy of the Condor soaring simulator, a copy of my book "Cross Country
Soaring with Condor", and fly XC in Condor over the winter. When you
get comfortable flying in the sim, give me a call/email at
and fly some one-on-one leader-follower flights
with me.

If you doubt the power of training in the Condor sim - just look at
the recently concluded Junior WGC. Two of the top four pilots in Club
Class, including the winner, are well-known Condor pilots. The just-
crowned JWGC Club Class champion (Tim Kuijpers) has logged only about
300 hours total time in real-life, but thousands of hours in Condor.
By way of comparison, our best placing U.S. pilot was Boyd Willat in
22nd place, over 1500 pts down from the leader after 7 days of
competition.

TA