How to teach XC with lead/follow technique?

We are trying to help teach XC to our fellow club members. I've heard of the Lead/Follow technique with an experienced pilot showing a student how to get around a course. Before we try it, are there any suggestions on how to best do it?

I've heard that if the leader is higher up or in a higher performance glider it is good to sometimes pull the spoilers and get down to the level of the student.

Should it be a 1:1 leader/follower ratio or can you have more than 1 follower?

I suppose a good talk on how to enter/exit and thermal together is the first thing - since they may not have flown gaggles before.

A portable flarm would be good to add to the student's gliders just to be able to track them.

Chris

On Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 4:21:58 PM UTC-7, wrote:
We are trying to help teach XC to our fellow club members. I've heard of the Lead/Follow technique with an experienced pilot showing a student how to get around a course. Before we try it, are there any suggestions on how to best do it?

I've heard that if the leader is higher up or in a higher performance glider it is good to sometimes pull the spoilers and get down to the level of the student.

Should it be a 1:1 leader/follower ratio or can you have more than 1 follower?

I suppose a good talk on how to enter/exit and thermal together is the first thing - since they may not have flown gaggles before.

A portable flarm would be good to add to the student's gliders just to be able to track them.

Chris

(my uninformed comments from somebody interested in this, not a leader)

What skill level is the student? Have they flown XC at all in a two seat ship?

I have a bias that XC novices are much better off making first XC flights in a 2 seat medium performance or better glider (i.e. L/D 40 to 1 or more). Clubs like BASA do a good job bringing people into XC with their DG-1000S, Morgan Hall with his Duo at Avenal, both utilizing a soaring "nursery" of relatively easy spring time soaring around Hollister and Avenal, CA.

My impression is many pilots first venturing out on XC really don't thermal well. Varies a lot by when and where they learnt to fly, some student may really just have almost no time thermalling before getting a license. Programs like the Air Sailing Thermalling camp seem a very good idea. Stuff where you are starting to push distance from the local gliderport and work on technique and judgment. Use the ABC badge program and maybe set a goal of local triangles around the gliderport before XC lead/follow...

(and I expect I'm preaching to the choir with the above comments anyhow).

Lead/follow can work one on one or one to few gliders. Issues I've seen are difference in ship performance which makes it frustrating for leader and follower. Another issue is lack of clarity on the plan for when things don't go well. And new pilots assuming they are following somebody around and there was no a super-clear clear commitment from the lead pilot--if there is the leader should be willing to hang in with the pilot struggling, pulling spoilers is the least of it, maybe land out with them if needed (help them on field selection etc.) , what is the retrieve plan, etc. Lots of things to work on together before the flight. And please STFU on the main radio frequencies, there is nothing more annoying than leaders and followers continuously jamming up common frequencies, work out how you are going to communicate at a sane level. Sure FLARM can help, but I think its far from needed especially one on one in relatively non-busy areas.

Try to get the student using a flight recorder and able to analyze their flights in SeeYou.

Do not underestimate the preparation work needed, helping the student loading the right waypoints or marking up a chart, understanding what the student is using for a soaring computer and talking though how they use it (making sure settings, polar etc. are sane). If folks are starting with a soaring computer they can easily overfixate on it.

Ramy Yanetz was an early mentor when I first started going cross country. One early one-on-one lead and follow was a huge help. And lots of flying in that area is technical understanding of convergence, local elevators, sea breeze etc.

Ramy also runs some friendly spring-time "races" which often end up more in group lead and follow where everybody is helping out everybody else and they are very good for newer XC pilots to participate in. Over the years it's been great to see things like Ramy leading a flock of ducklings across the Sacramento delta or be flying near Avenal and see Morgan Hall in his Duo Discus coming the other way with a flock of his ducklings in tow.

Now I've made it impossible for Ramy and Morgan not to reply here :-)

On Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 7:21:58 PM UTC-4, wrote:
We are trying to help teach XC to our fellow club members.
I've heard of the Lead/Follow technique with an experienced pilot showing
a student how to get around a course. Before we try it, are there any
suggestions on how to best do it?

Before you even start XC, be careful that students a
- not afraid and/or prone to panic
- proficient enough to execute an off-field landing without drama
- reasonably competent at thermalling, checked AT HOME
- practiced in gaggles AT HOME
- fluent with basic theory about STF and glides to a point.

Making assumptions about the above (as I did once) can be pretty scary.

Best would be BEFORE trying lead-follow, do some dual with each pilot:
- check the above thermalling, gaggle, STF skills
- do a dual XC. Blanik or above is quite adequate for basic XC training,
obviously a Duo is best.
- see if you can provoke overload; you don't want this to happen
during a lead-and-follow.

First and foremost task when training XC is MAKE SURE
student is always making proper assessments about potential
landing sites. Everything else is secondary!

Start with a very close-in triangle (best in gliding range of
home and/or a couple other airports).

Hope that helps!
Best Regards, Dave

PS: It is very easy to assume capabilities we take for granted,
and have student get in a bad spot...

On Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 7:21:58 PM UTC-4, wrote:
We are trying to help teach XC to our fellow club members. I've heard of the Lead/Follow technique with an experienced pilot showing a student how to get around a course. Before we try it, are there any suggestions on how to best do it?

I've heard that if the leader is higher up or in a higher performance glider it is good to sometimes pull the spoilers and get down to the level of the student.

Should it be a 1:1 leader/follower ratio or can you have more than 1 follower?

I suppose a good talk on how to enter/exit and thermal together is the first thing - since they may not have flown gaggles before.

A portable flarm would be good to add to the student's gliders just to be able to track them.

Chris

Hmmmm. There's an article (or two) in the answer I have in mind. We (the Post Mills guys) should write it. We've done enough of it to have an idea of what works... and where it can go wrong.

Abbreviated version: certain essentials must be present. Student must climb well and orient well. Must be able to share a thermal. Must be ready to cope with landings at other airports or in good fields. Teacher must be committed to the mission of the day and needs to set personal goals (e.g. OLC points) completely aside. Pair flying works better than lead & follow. Briefing and de-briefing are essential. The brief needs to concentrate heavily on risk management and risk mitigation.

When prerequisites are met and things go well, this is very satisfying. When the student isn't quite ready and/or the teacher would really rather be racking up some monster OLC flight, not so much.

There are many variations on this theme that can be constructed. Many work well.

Happy to discuss off line.

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8

On Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 5:29:44 PM UTC-7, Darryl Ramm wrote:
And please STFU on the main radio frequencies, there is nothing more annoying than leaders and
followers continuously jamming up common frequencies, work out how you are going to communicate
at a sane level. Sure FLARM can help, but I think its far from needed especially one on one in relatively
non-busy areas.

Anybody used FRS with VOX for something like this?

For example:
https://smile.amazon.com/Midland-GXT...8&keywords=frs

5Z

On Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 9:31:19 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 5:29:44 PM UTC-7, Darryl Ramm wrote:
And please STFU on the main radio frequencies, there is nothing more annoying than leaders and
followers continuously jamming up common frequencies, work out how you are going to communicate
at a sane level. Sure FLARM can help, but I think its far from needed especially one on one in relatively
non-busy areas.

Anybody used FRS with VOX for something like this?

For example:
https://smile.amazon.com/Midland-GXT...8&keywords=frs

5Z

Another really good tool for beginner xc pilots is a 50 kilometer triangle with the home field at the center.
The Kansas Soaring Assc. has one of these at Sunflower. It is a great idea in that the three legs are close to equal in distance, for the middle of each leg the home field is reassuringly close, and 50 k is a reasonable triangle distance without being a total Gimmie. Increased difficulty can easily be added by multiple laps of the course. also once a pilot is comfortable with the local 50k triangle, scaling up to longer tasks is less intimidating than a straight out departure with the home field disappearing behind you!

Scott

We call it the "Drag and drop"! Just saying, necessity is the mother of invention. in this case getting home. Miss the good ole days of having to land out to get a silver badge.

Oh well somebody does triangles in Kansas....

(Good luck Tony :-))

Chris,

I have been teaching this way for about 20 years. It can work well and also fail spectacularly.

It is best to establish very clear ground rules for both the student and the teacher. Understanding what is expected from both should be worked out on the ground before the flight.

The student should not be a new xc pilot. He/she should have some xc experience with local flights of 15 to 20 miles and be able to thermal and stay up for several hours by themselves. I recommend a bronze badge at a minimum.. They must be comfortable landing in varied conditions and mentally ready to land out.

The leader must be ready to landout with the student. More than a few hundred feet vertical is useless in lead/follow. I have had many days where I have burned 10,000 to 20,000 feet during a flight with the spoilers out. If the student is down to 1000 feet over a field the leader has to be willing to go down and try to help them get up or be willing to show where to land.. The student can be very unpredictable and the leader must be ready for many different reactions. Some students will express the desire to learn xc but when it comes down to it they will get extremely nervous as soon as you start to get out of range of the airport.

On first flights I would only recommend 1:1. When the students have gained skills it is possible to work with 1:2.

Tim

On Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 9:56:57 PM UTC-6, wrote:
We call it the "Drag and drop"! Just saying, necessity is the mother of invention. in this case getting home. Miss the good ole days of having to land out to get a silver badge.

Cliff,

That's coming back I believe, in the Oct 2018 rules if I read the IGC plenary tweets correctly.

Frank Whiteley