On Thursday, April 5, 2018 at 9:42:00 AM UTC-4, Roy B. wrote:
Friends:
I am trying to learn more about how different clubs with active XC pilots flying privately owned gliders handle the problem of determining "Is everybody back safely?" - before everybody at the airport goes home.

In my club we frequently shut down training operations around 5:00 pm or so and the day's Duty Officer, the instructors and tow pilots will all leave, but we will often still have pilots out on course sometimes as late as 7:00 pm or later. Some pilots have landed back to find that they are the only ones at the airfield. It has happened to me several times.

It seems that there is a real risk of an accident happening on course and nobody realizing it until the next day, or a risk that somebody lands out safely but that fact is not communicated back to the airfield (with a lot of unnecessary worry and confusion).

I'm trying to come up with a procedure that makes sense for our club and so I was hoping people would share here how they try to solve this problem.

Thanks
Roy B.
GBSC Chief Pilot

The Aero Club Albatross drinking club sticks around while there is still flying going on. They keep drinking until the last pilot is down (and long thereafter).

The longer the last pilot is up, the bigger their challenge! They've never complained about my routine late landings, sometimes at sunset.

As such, there's always people around at Blairstown Airport. And then everyone goes out and gets dinner after a nice soaring day.

This is why a healthy social culture at a club is really important.

All the best,
Daniel