On Tue, 18 Aug 2015 14:49:52 -0700, Bob Pasker wrote:

Graduated training flights. It would be great if the locals would put up
on their website some proposed training flights of increasing difficulty
suited to the terrain and the typical weather of for the area. These
graduated training flights should be structured around Silver Distance,
Gold Distance, and Diamond Goal. For example, for Silver Distance as a
triangle, there could be two practice flights, out and back to each of
the other two points on the triangle, and then the third for all three
points.

Just wanna pick one nit: hope you don't mind. You can't use a 50km closed
course for Silver C because its essentially awarded for a straight flight
of 50km, presumably to get you used to going out of gliding range from
home. Without that restriction you'd get people drawing a roughly
equilateral 50km triangle centred on the home airfield. But that wouldn't
really be an XC at all because its furthest points are barely 12 miles
from home.

Is the 100km diploma recognised in America? If so, just double the
triangle size and you've got a nice sized closed course for a new XC
pilot to tackle after the Silver distance. Besides, 50 km to gold 300 is
a bit of a leap. Even an older glider can do 100 km in 2 hours or less so
changing weather conditions probably isn't an issue, but even a mid-range
toy (Pegase or ASW-20) is going to need 4 - 4.5 hours to do 300 km in the
hands of a relative novice and so dealing with changing conditions, due
to both the time of day and to flying into different parts of the
country, become relevant.

But I agree that having a set of recognised club tasks is a good idea,
and even better if a few of them have a perpetual trophy for the fastest
flight during the year.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |