Gliding first, then add power...enjoy both!
Booker Gliding Club at Wycombe Air Park, not far from White Waltham, which is tucked under the apron of the London Heathrow Zone....
Back in 1983, I turned up and had two flights in a K21 glass fibre glider with Bernie Fitchett, who was a top glider competition pilot, and member of the British Team. Wycombe Air Park (WAP) shared the field with the British Airways Flying Club, the Wycombe Air Centre (Wycombe Scare Centre), and a Helicopter operation which sometimes changed its name....
To say nothing of the steady stream of heavy jets passing not far overhead when the wind was from the East.
So we had to contend with plenty of limitations on airspace, and learned right off to keep a jolly good lookout. The gliding was aerotow only. So costly. I went solo in 3 months, and the following summer achieved the Silver Badge qualification, which involved a 50 kilometer trip in a basic sort of glider, probably about 27 to one glide performance. A gain of height from lowest point, I seem to remember 1,000 meters. And ENDURANCE -
staying aloft - for FIVE HOURS.
A lot of experience, then. And only a minimum of hours required to gain the Private Pilots License...I recall was it 8 hours? not a lot, anyhow.
WAP was handy to make the transition, after learning to fly gliders, to
earn the PPL at the school of your choice...
As others have mentioned, the only problem was dealing with radio yak. We already knew how to takeoff in formation (on the end of a rope) and to do an emergency landing - how to navigate (follow the motorway), and most particularly learned to interpret weather.
Since then I became a gliding instructor, tug pilot, and got the instrument rating in Texas, where petrol was cheaper! and the enroute controllers friendly, and the landings were free! Meanwhile, back in the UK, I joined a farmers gliding club, with winch launches (cheaper, scarier, I dare anyone reading this to have a go on a winch launch!). If you don't find lift, it is a five minute flight, so lots of practice taking off and landing.
Certainly the gliding is much more challenging in every way, and I have flown in competition, in mountain wave, along the coastline of Devon and Cornwall, so scary and beautiful. I bought a Supercub (with a towhook, of course) and flew it to Spain by myself, to France with a friend, to Ireland, with another friend, where it got stuck in a bog....
And now? it is my great pleasure to introduce teenagers to gliding. I help out on the ground, not in the air. Passing the torch. I no longer fly Pilot in Charge, but looking at the chart for tomorrow, these low pressure cu-nimbs should relent, and the day should be a good one. Roll on summer!