On Sep 6, 3:57*am, T8 wrote:
On Sep 6, 12:41*am, Eric Greenwell wrote:









On 9/5/2011 11:31 AM, Brad wrote:

On Sep 5, 11:24 am, *wrote:
The SSA has recently mailed a letter to the membership regarding the
continuing unacceptable accident rate. Studies have shown one of the
primary reasons for a high accident rate is a fundemental lack of
knowledge. The Joy of Soaring was written as a simple coffee table
book. It was never designed to be a flight training manual.

Tom Knauff

30 years ago my instructor at Issaquah Soaring sold me a copy of this
book...............30 years later and a few thousand hours of flight
time and I'm still accident free......maybe it's not the book?

I'm sure the SSA had every intention it would serve as a flight training
book, as did the author. Like Brad, I'm at 30 years and a few thousand
hours later, and I also used it as a manual for many years as a CFIG.
It's probably not the best choice now, but it was a good choice then.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

I loved Joy of Soaring 25 years ago, don't particularly like seeing it
slagged off here either.

It taught the simple subject of basic stick and rudder airmanship to
this student, quite well. *I'm quite confident in saying that *if a
student masters the basics as presented in Joy of Soaring, and sticks
to them, they won't crash.

I'm not buying "fundamental lack of knowledge" just yet, either. *It
doesn't square up with my personal observations. *Whose studies?
Published where?

-Evan Ludeman / T8

What worries me more are the folks that claim soaring simulators like
Condor do a great job of prepping pilots for a variety of conditions.
I have never used it, but I can't see how it in any way can prepare a
pilot for a windy day up against a rock wall in windy thermal
conditions. I'm sure the book "Joy of Soaring" mentions something
about flying in these conditions and what to look for, but I can't
imagine anyone actually flying in those conditions would be up there
because they read how to do it in that book, conversely, after parking
in front of a simulator for a few hours there might be some pilots who
feel they are ready to head out and give it a try.

Brad