This was an embarrassing show of incompetence by the gliding movement - and by the BGA, right to the top. This has been waiting to happen for some time, sadly.
I consider myself a glider pilot first and foremost. I am, or have been, proud of that. I have long held that on balance, pilots trained as glider pilots first are better, safer pilots than the average. Right now, this event makes me seriously doubt that. All UK glider pilots should feel embarrassed at this shambles.
Anyone can make a mistake of course. I've made plenty. But what sort of half asleep characters set a task to within such a short distance of an RA? These should be fairly senior, competent people. (And while I thoroughly approve of the contest directors reading a major riot act the next day, I hope they also did a 'mea culpa'. They surely needed to !)
This was a Juniors contest, so the pilots are likely to need more guidance and supervision, support. Of course, these folk are supposed to be amongst our brightest and best (wince) young pilots, so the fact that apparently more than half the field can't do basic navigation is a fairly damning indictment of the BGA's training system these days. They will include pilots from all over the UK, so it's a generic problem, not just a local one.
Who taught these young pilots navigation and airmanship? Who has been supervising them? Evidently, no-one, or not sufficiently. One or two getting it wrong would be understandable. Half the field? Come on.
Looking around the current BGA set up, sadly, I am not surprised. We have too many, at best marginally capable, 'instructors' who can just about teach to a safe level of mechanical action. I challenge what deeper understanding they can give our young pilots. Apparently, darn little.
In the modern touchy feely, 'everyone is as good as everyone else', 'don't let's be unkind to anyone' world, these people are not encouraged to either develop their own competence to teach or get out. There is not enough positive criticism given or accepted. All too often folk are allowed to continue without improvement in too many cases.
This event, to my way of thinking, is exactly the sort of result to be expected, eventually. Fortunately nothing worse than embarrassment and annoyance, though it is bad enough. I hope the gliding movement at large learns a lesson from this and sharpens up its act. They desperately need to. I see notably higher standards of flying, training and supervision elsewhere in the gliding world now.
We used to think we were amongst the world's best; it would nice to head back that way, so -
Come on folks - surely we can do better than this. There are a bunch of lessons to learn here !
Last edited by biscuit74; 24th Aug 2010 at 22:30.