On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 12:41:40 PM UTC-7, noel.wade wrote:
MB -



Does Willamette Valley assign an instructor to a student....

Noel, et al,

I've been on the road all week and not able to respond to questions or comments in a timely manner, my apologies.

The WVSC does not exactly assign students, the chief instructor just asks who can take another student and that's where they go! We have a policy that students that are flying before 12PM can take three flights or one hour. That works pretty well in the morning before the lift begins. The students can get in at least a couple 3000 tows and a pattern in the hour. If they hang areound the rest of the day they may get in one or two more. We're open 4 days a week, Wed. Fri. and weekends. Students that can do their flying on Wed. or Fri. can really make progress as the demand for ships is lower on those days.

As I said, this year we are constrained and are not accepting more students until some of the pre-solo students have soloed. Instructors are "normal" members of the club, they pay dues and work Ops days. They are also independent in most of their financial dealings with their students. The exception is the 5-pack where payment comes from the club. Last year I went over the $600 IRS limit (with 5-packs) and got a 1099 from the club!

I think most instructors in the club are charging $35 per hour and the population is happy with the rates.

Regarding XC use of club planes, we also require that all pilots have a Private certificate and complete the Bronze badge before attempting solo. I also think that many complete the duration leg of the Silver badge before heading out XC.

As I noted in the OP, I bought a higher performance dual-seat glider just so I could teach the XC elements "for real". Once the club got a ship that was able to be used, I sold mine.

Regarding the use of Condor, I've had great success in the past year getting student using Condor and making great progress. I bought a copy of Frank's book at the convention and am still trying to get into it, I'm a professional flight instructor, it's my daily job, and this time of year we fly from sun-up to sun-down at the flight school. I don't get much reading time!

I have used a C-150 to do area flights, getting students looking at the potential land-out sites and just getting a broader view of the world.

Another long post but I was just catching up!

MB