Somebody posed the question whether instrument flying skills are part
of the European glider pilot license.


I don’t know about other European countries, but in the UK, it is
not. When pilot qualifications (not at present a license necessarily)
stop being a BGA matter and become an EASA issue instead between April
this year and 2015, there will be a glider pilots licence, and
separately an instrument rating that can be added to it or not.


None of what follows is in any way a suggestion that other countries
copy us – I am simply stating facts as far as I know them. AFAIAC,
what you do in the USA in particular is entirely your affair.


Under the present UK arrangements, it is legal for gliders to go IMC
in class G airspace, which is where most of us fly. Nobody knows how
many people do it, nor what training they have had. Some are PPLs or
ATPLs with instrument ratings anyway. Some are not, and have learned
cloud flying by less formal means. My impression is that only a small
minority of glider pilots fly in cloud at all – but I know of no way
to establish that with certainty. My impression is gained partly from
talking to other pilots, but mostly from monitoring the cloud flying
radio frequency. I rarely hear anybody using it for cloud flying.


Competitions in the UK are either “rated” (and count for placings
towards the national competitions and national team membership etc.)
or “unrated”. I don’t know about the former, but cloud flying is often
if not always permitted in unrated competitions, of which I have
entered many. Collisions in cloud in competitions are virtually
unknown these days – we have had a radio procedure which seems
effective for over 30 years, and I think no incidents in that time.
There were a very few before that, even fewer or maybe none fatal in
the UK as far as I know.


We did have one fatal break-up in cloud nearly 30-40 years ago (not in
a competition). It was a very experienced pilot flying a modified
glider (extended wings) and the cause was unknown as far as I recall.


We had one cloud related collision, not competition, more recently. It
was about at cloud base. IIRC, neither pilot was using the cloud
flying protocol. There was another in very poor visibility. I won’t
comment further as my knowledge is second hand, from the accident
reports.


In the UK it is common practice to thermal up to cloud base, with no
requirement for instrument flying training let alone an IR. It is also
common to fly close to wave clouds. Occasionally people do enter cloud
inadvertently, but not usually sucked up in the way so graphically
described in Kempton Izuno's article. Before modern gliders, and
before much use of wave in the UK, clouds were more often used to gain
gold and diamond heights, typically in CBs – but most UK CBs are
nothing like as vigorous as those often found in the USA. I doubt if
anyone ventures deliberately into active CBs these days. (I have been
in one, or perhaps 2, not realising what they were developing into –
and I soon got out when I realised, and before the flashing and
banging started.)


I would be interested to know if it is possible to deduce from an IGC
logger file whether cloud was entered or not. If anyone wants to try
some analysis, I could provide some traces where I climbed from below
cloud up into them. I can’t say at what height, though i have a rough
idea from other clues and memory. My guess is that a competition
scrutineer would have difficulty in identifying the entry height. Even
harder would be to say when it got closer than 500 or 1000 feet from
cloud base, without other traces for comparison.


I hope you don’t mind a Brit providing the above information. As I
said, I am not trying to influence the USA scene, just provide some
facts relevant to questions posed by others.


Chris N