On Sunday, May 2, 2021 at 4:28:17 PM UTC-4, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 02 May 2021 10:39:45 -0700, Tony wrote:

It doesn't need to be this way. In the midst of a pandemic, Sandhill
Soaring Club (located in S.E. Michigan) has grown from 70 to about 90
members in the course of a couple of years. We largely attribute this
to upgrading the fleet, having a regular presence on social media and a
decent website that attracts customers and informs prospects and
members
It can work pretty well with the normal British pilot progression: while
working on the Bronze qualification, which is entirely local soaring and
must be passed, at my club anyway, before getting a cross country
endorsement (the latter covers field selection, landing out, i.e. landing
on a part of the airfield that is rarely used, and doinf field selection,
field landing exercises and navigation exercises with an instructor on a
touring motor glider[*]) its entirely practical do the Silver duration
and height gain legs as and when good weather comes up while working on
Bronze. Then, once you have the Bronze XC endorsement our instructors
pick a task on a decent day and brief newly Bronzed pilots to do there
Silver distance. Certainly worked that way for me.

Next step: the 100km diploma flown as a declared triangle. Did that with
a brief of "if you get round in good time, turn around and fly a second
lap on the opposite direction". Well it was a super day and I was in the
club's Pegase 90 so I did just that. Fun!

[*] Falke SF-25 with a trickle of power to approximate a 30:1 glide ratio
to practise field picking, followed by circuit and approach to the field.
Like in GA training the instructor puts the powe on whe its obvious
whether (or not) your field selection and approach was any good.
--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org


[*] Falke SF-25 with a trickle of power to approximate a 30:1 glide ratio
to practise field picking, followed by circuit and approach to the field.
Like in GA training the instructor puts the powe on whe its obvious
whether (or not) your field selection and approach was any good.

That's exactly how we used our SF25s. The instructor would fly with a pre-XC student along the proposed 50km course and have him/her pick potential off field landing spots all the way to the final approach before 'rocketing' back to safety by cracking the whip on those 45 horses! :-) It was a great training tool and took a lot of the anxiety out of the first XC.

Uli
'AS'