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I have been sitting on this mail for a while to see
if the situation would change.
Having started my 13 year old training this
year feel I am in an almost unique position to
comment. I have a few observations in respect to low
retention rates of juniors amd the relative sucess of air cadets.
1. We have so far made 7 trips to the gliding club
for training purposes. we arrive at 10:00am, help rig and clean the gliders then
if we are lucky get 2 flights each. The first flight has never happened before
3:00 pm due to passengers who arrive hours after us, taking priority. This is
not unique to this club either. (Try explaining this to a modern 13
yo)
2. There is NO
!!!!! system of rostering flghts so unless you actively push yourself
forward you could wait all day. This is a totally unsatisfactory situation and
IMHO the root cause of the problems.
3. We recently attended at an aerotow club so I
could give the boy a shot in a glass ship. We were told we would have to wait
for the duty instructor-who was constantly flying for 1 and a half hours
and eventually I had to go out to the flght line and get his
attention.
His response was we would have to wait
again for several hours. Meanwhile in that time 6 passengers had arrived
and flown and left. (Try explaining this to
a modern 13 yo)We left in disgust.
This is doubly ironic as the president of
this club had recently told me this sort of thing was no longer was a
problem(It was the first club I trained with years ago and
left because of lack of progress due to only getting 2 flghts per day 20
years ago!!!! )
I consider 3 flghts the minimum for any progress
less than this on any one day is a waste of money the trainee takes at least one
flght to establish a rapport with the glider again, one during which sopmething
is learned, and then the third allows practice of acquired
skill.
4. The reason for the sucess of aircadets is
probably they do not expect young people to hang around all day on the off
chance they may get to fly. If they turn up they know they will get a
shot most likely in an pre-arranged order.
5. It seems to me
the bulk of glider pilots in Aust trained many years ago and have no idea what
it is like from the trainees perspective.
I personally had a much interuppted training such
that I basically went thru the process twice. Once at a major capital city club
that operated 7 days a week yet still with 2 two seaters and instructors I was
lucky to get 2 flghts a day making progress VERY slow AND expensive. The second
was a 5 day course at a commercial operation. In this case I easily solo'd
in 26 flights despite a ten year hiatus from training.
6.Despite all this my son is still keen but if this
sort of thing continues he wil definately drop out before too long and I dont
blame him.
it is ok for the instructors and solo pilots who
have an option to fly at any time but the trainee simply waits and wonders, and
then wanders away.
7.As for myself I of course am lucky to get to fly
at all as any flight I have is one less my son gets, so despite 7 visits I
still am not close to having my winch endorsment.
8.Soaring as a sport/hobby eventually die if we
stick to these outdated practices.In the year 2003 there are too many options
for young people that actually provide no excessive waiting during
training, and obviously young peolple expect service
In no way does this reflect on my club it is the
simple fact at nearly every non commercial gliding club I have been to in
SA.
How many juniors do we lose every year I
wonder?
Regards and Seasons greetings to all.\
Dave Lawley
----- Original Message -----
I can blame the UK Air Cadet movement for my start in gliding, and aviation in general - I then administered a UK University gliding club for 3 years - and if Mr B wants a scapegoat for my being in Australia that is it, as I came here to watch the 1974 Waikerie Worlds, and am still here! Hopefully the results of 600+ hours of instructing, a few comps I have helped organise, and some of the administration (and the dreaded bureaucracy) things that make life easier or less regulated by non-glider-pilots - and others yet to see the light of day - will justify my existence as a contributor to our sphere of activity. We could always either pretend the rest of aviation didn't exist ( in which it would most likely pretend we did not exist, with a far greater predictive validity likelihood in 10 years' time), or go off and fly where there was nobody else to bother us and where it didn't matter if we had any rules or not - but I think we are more likely to have a positive influence on the rest of aviation by being part of the mainstream and administering ourselves so as to earn some respect from the other people who also use the sky, whether for mass transportation, national infrastructure, defence or their own pleasure. Turning to the UK competition scene, it is worthy of note that a vast majority of those gaining success in international soaring sport are at least second-generation soaring pilots. I'm sure this isn't lost on young Mr Woolley - all strength to his arm. Wombat |
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