Bruce Greeff wrote in message ...

Just for interest we had no instructors at my club with any interest in XC.
Though there were two private owners to emulate. Neither were particularly
interested in teaching the art.

So - I get to teach myself - and so far so good.

If we can get there we will work on buying a club glass 2 seater in the next
year or so. Probably buy one of the private L13s first though. Not my
prefference but some things are facts, whether we approve or not.

Tilting at clouds is more fun anyway.

Bruce,

That's interesting (about the instructors having no interest in XC),
and I've noticed the same thing here in the US (at commercial
operations, I must add). I also had to teach myself to go XC, and
absolutely think it is what gliding is all about - for me, at least.

Funny, if the military and airlines (who train a lot more pilots than
glider schools do) believed what the "2-33 as the best trainer"
advocates did, they would still be using Cubs, Stearmans, Tiger Moths,
and T-6s to train their pilots. Now, I love those planes (have flown
in all except the Moth) and totally agree that in their day they were
excellent trainers - because they prepared pilots for the planes they
would fly for keeps - big prop taildraggers. But today, pilots moving
to jet, fly-by-wire, glass cockpits planes (that are incredibly easy
to fly by complex to manage) need to start off with trainers that are
similar in the crucial aspects. I just think the same applies to
gliders. For example, energy management (speed control) is more
important than altitude management in modern glass (within limits, of
course!). In a 2-33, it's the opposite: speed management is really
not too critical, but slavish attention to altitude is, if you expect
to get back. So how is this good training for a pilot who wants to
move up to a glass single seater? I've seen several pilots trained on
2-33's have problems converting to glass 2-seaters, and then scaring
themselves in their new (or worse - used) glass single seater - to the
point that they eventually dropped out of the game altogether.

Hey, I know what, lets make the 2-33 the Olympic class! You could put
a camera man/announcer/coxwain in the front seat, and have short
triangle laps around the airfield, in full view of the awed, admiring
(and probably intoxicated) audience!


Kirk