A taste of gliding
Hi petestratten,
I started my flying career with a BGA 'B' Certificate and then later moved into power flying. Over two or three years in the late sixties, I was a member first of London Gliding Club at Dunstable Downs and then of Thames Valley Club at Booker. I found gliding very frustrating, but it did give me a far better foundation for learning to fly power than I should otherwise have had. So I suspect that every low hours power pilot would probably benefit from a bit of gliding.
However, I have said this before in another recent thread regarding attracting power pilots to gliding. The majority of power pilots can only just afford sufficient power flying annually to remain legal and barely current. They certainly could not afford regular gliding as well.
Furthermore, the reference in another post to someone working like a trojan all day and perhaps not even getting a flight by the end of the day are all too true. That happened to me very many times. So I can't imagine someone used to just turning up and flying being very happy with that.
Nevertheless, I suspect some power pilots would like to have a one-off taste of gliding, just for interest and would certainly benefit from doing so.
So I would recommend that a gliding club might organise some two or three day taster courses in the summer, rather like the gliding holiday courses they already provide for beginners. Some pilots might choose this instead of a citybreak holiday or a fly-out.
However, as regards trying to make power pilots take up gliding on a regular basis, I should say just forget it. The only ones who will wish to do it regularly are likely to be young power pilots who are not really interested in gliding at all, but merely want to fly the tug aircraft to 'build hours' for free.
(I wonder why we have had two such threads within such a short time; could it be the gliding clubs would like to poach us)?
Regards,
BP.