Monday, April 11, 2005

Welcome!

This blog will focus on the sport and art and science of soaring - that is, sailplanes and gliders. I hope this will be helpful to other student pilots... and maybe fun for others as well. (When I started out, I found a wonderful web site about a student's experiences in Aboyne, Scotland. It's offline now... if anyone knows where it's available, please post! This won't be nearly so organized... )

I got my Private Pilot Certificate - Glider a couple of months ago. It would have been good to blog from the beginning, but I was too busy at the time. I did keep a journal, tho, and have posted all of it here. So the past is in reverse order from here down.

Because my experiences may reflect on other pilots, instructors, examiners etc., I won't use their names and for now I won't post much that will identify me and my club...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"When I started out, I found a wonderful web site about a student's experiences in Aboyne, Scotland. "

Did you mean this one? It moved to its new address about a year ago.

The address is:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/miskin/gliding/

Roger Worden said...

Yes, that's the one. THANK YOU!! I have searched Google etc. a number of times and have not found it. I'm glad it found a new home on the web. I highly recommend that site to anyone starting out in this sport! The "Training to Solo" page with its 26 linked lessons is brilliant. I had not seen it for over a year... now I want to go through it all over again. Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

Hi Roger,

Great blog. I'm a student glider pilot, about 60 flights/10 solo. I've flown at a club and at a commercial operation, and I was struck by your comments about your club. First of all, it seems like it's easy for you to get more than one flight in a day. At my club, students frequently spend 5-8 hours at the field before getting a flight: too many other students, only one instructor willing to instruct, 20 private ship launches and 1 towplane. And after that 1 flight, it's at least 1 hour until the next flight, if you can even get one. It's not at all uncommon for students to spend two summers getting to solo. Most people have to go off to commercial operations to get licensed, because no instructor is willing to sign them off, so if they don't they stay in student limbo forever.

You also talk about being the only one there, or "I'm glad there was another person to push the glider". How can the club get a tow pilot with nobody showing up? In my club, it's always a zoo. I love flying, but I hate my club so much I feel like quitting after every visit.

Anyway, good luck with your soaring!