instructor technique

Hello all,

A bit of my background. I've been flying power for 3 years (300 hours
... I was "keen" g), and just finished a "concentrated" glider
"conversion" over the past 3 weeks (12 flying days), and now have a
"glider" license. Literrally "glider", as I've been trained to safely
glide locally only, but that's another discussion g.

The club that I trained it, is probably similar to many others. The
instructors are volunteers, and the level of instruction varies from
one individual to another.

When I was flying, I met two other students who started at the same
time that I did. One of them was also a transitioning power pilot,
the other was ab-initio. We all agreed that one of the most annoying
things an instructor can do is to be "on the controls", a.k.a.
"helping" the student, *without* telling the student, i.e. "I will
handle the rudder on the takeoff", or stating "I have control".

Funny how "heavy" the controls felt in an L13, when I went up in one
with an instructor, who specifically wanted me to see how much more
responsive the plane was, compared to a 233 :/ (When I "had control"
while circling in a thermal, I completely let go of the controls, and
amazingly the plane still kept circling without losing altitude or
changing the pitch attitude / bank angle ! )

This was "buried" in another thread, but I thought it had an
interesting point that directly relates to my recent training.

"Chris Reed" wrote in message ...
My only concern is when I'm flying with a new pupil (as a Basic
Instructor I
fly newcomers, handing them over to more experienced instructors once
they've got the basic handling started). I have to take over at
500ft,
so ideally the pupil will fly down to 500 ft.

Why do you have to take control at 500 feet? Assuming that the
student has the aircraft at speed/attitude, and under control.

However, when the nose is high,the speed is washing off and the
rudder pedals are waggling, I'm listening to the aircraft very hard to
make sure I take over before things get nasty - in the K21, it just
wallows around in that situation and I feel much more comfortable!

Why would the nose ever be "high" under 500 ft ? If it starts to get
high, surely you would say something to the student, and they don't
react, you should announce "I have control", and correct it, NOW!

I haven't flown a Puchaz, (only the lowly "233", but I would guess
that as a higher performance glider, that it's going to take *longer*
for it to bleed off speed than a "draggy" 233 does ? And if so, then
the nose would have to high for "many" seconds before the speed got
dangerously low.

Or is the nose attitude in a Puchaz, not much different between "slow"
/ min sink / thermal speed, and landing / approach speeds ?

Mike