My neighbor is an airline captain, flying on intercontinental routes.
Last summer we did a 3+ hours XC flight with our club's Janus.
- At the first he was quite nervous, winch launch, then tight
thermaling in 400 meters until we got enough height to move into
better thermals. I would have been a bit worried myself at
backseat, the first glider flight, first winch launch.. ;^)
- He had difficulties with rudder. He told that it's more than 10
years since he fly anything where any pedal/rudder control was
needed.
- He was flying too fast, being afraid of stalling. Then I asked him
to stall the plane to see what it does, and what is the lowest
speed we could fly the plane. He strongly refused, so I stalled the
plane couple times myself, and that helped him to relax.
- After about 1 hours flying he already fly quite well, but finding
and centering to thermals was still difficult. But Janus is a bit
difficult to handle while circling, and I believe that with duo discus
or a single seater he would have been fine.
- I think every airline pilot should fly gliders couple times every
year.