At 18:27 22 January 2012, Frank Paynter wrote:
On Jan 22, 1:06=A0pm, T wrote:
On Jan 22, 7:53=A0am, Frank Paynter wrote:

My club uses the volunteer instructor model for student instruction,
and I am trying to determine how effective this model is versus
commercial soaring center instruction. =A0Based on my review of our
records (such as they are) it appears it takes our students an
average
of 33 flights from 'first ride' to solo.

Anyone else out there have similar objective data from their
operations?

TIA

Frank (TA)

A lot of data is missing from your basic determination of first flight
to solo.
Commercial operations are able to operate more days than just weekend
clubs. This allows closer repetitive flying days for the student. Are
you separating data of "add-on" and primary students? Does your club
maintaining training records and standard syllabus folders for the
volunteer instructors and students to review during the pre brief? Are
your instructors assigning reading material to prepare for the next
lesson? Or do your instructors just say "jump in let's go".

Are your students there at least one day every weekend and stay for
more than just thier lesson? A student who flies every other week or
has longer delays between fly days will need to repeat the last
lesson. Are assigned readings reviewed before the flight and the
syllabus followed? Is the student prepared? If they are instructed in
the checklist, shown the material in the handbook, and told to
memorize it for the next week. And then they show up to fly and had
not cracked the book, they are wasting the instructors free time and
their money.

A club with volunteer instructors can operate efficiently with a good
syllabus and lead instructor guidance.

I would venture that our numbers are slightly lower, but I have not
crunched or tracked the data. Everyone gets that student that just has
"the hands", and the student that does not, but thinks he already
knows everything. The second student will take more lessons to
complete.

T

Thanks for the input, but I'm not really interested in any of the
intangible aspects or 'which is better' arguments regarding commercial
operators vs club. I'm just trying to determine whether or not there
is a significant difference in the 'flights-to-solo' data, and whether
or not there is any real data on this parameter at all, commercial or
club.

Regards,

TA



Respectfully, Frank, without accounting for the confounders, the data is
relatively meaningless. Commercial operations are more likely to have older
students who can pay commercial rates, but for some reason seem to take
longer. Clubs are more likely to operate fewer days per year than
commercial operations, but have a different way of looking at students. In
addition, clubs in the south can operate more days than clubs in the north,
so a student who starts in September in Minnesota will not solo as soon as
a student who starts in September in southern California.

Young sailplane pilots seem to progress faster WRT stick and rudder skills,
but the most important skill in flying is aeronautical decision making. I'm
not sure 30 flights prepares a young person (or and old person, for that
matter) to make safe decisions in anything other than the conditions he/she
has already experienced. The danger always occurs in situations the pilot
is not experienced in. My club, the Texas Soaring Association, is very
conservative in granting solo privileges to students. I can't tell you the
average number of flights, and I'm not an instructor, but I was a student
just a couple of years ago. The instructors place a high level of
importance on being able to make good decisions in emergency situations,
while the routine MCA and unusual attitude recovery situations are just
expected normal proficiency.

At TSA, our student pilots don't solo until they've have spin training and
can demonstrate safe recovery. How many clubs have such a requirement? What
other differences in instructional philosophy exist at other sites?

So, without adjusting for the confounders, the data is not statistically
valuable. I suggest that you request data from sites that are similar to
yours in geography and daily operation, and have about the same number of
instructors available.

Best regards,

Jeff