Hi Derek, Hope you are well. This is a very late response to your email, but as no one else seems to have made comment on your suggestion, let me say that you have summed up the entire discussion in a single line. Well done.
As a rule of thumb, early X/C flights (dual or solo), should not exceed 3 hours. There has been some suggestions that a good trailer is almost essential for road retrieves. What a load of rot! A good trailer is a great asset, but it is by no means essential. What IS ESSENTIAL is that the pilot intending to go X/C is totally familiar with the workings of the trailer that IS available. Quite simply, if the pilot is not familiar with the trailer, then NO X/C for that pilot until this exercise is done. Just possibly, said pilot might get off his a*se, and make a few improvements to said trailer, if the trailer is a bit marginal (almost always!), but in my experience, this is a rare occurrence indeed. Gary -----Original Message----- From: aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net [mailto:aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net] On Behalf Of Derek Ruddock Sent: Saturday, 31 January 2015 7:54 PM To: 'Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.' Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Two Seater Nationals You don't need a DG1000: take the K13! (but don't go as far :) ) -----Original Message----- From: aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net [mailto:aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net] On Behalf Of DMcD Sent: Saturday, 31 January 2015 6:02 PM To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Two Seater Nationals >>the GFA pilot training programme for more cross-country exposure during the >>ab-initio stage. Who said that! If only that happened more during training. IMHO, that's the single most important thing for a club to do when trying to make the conversion from student pilot to addicted and committed flyer. Having done enough HG flying to know what I was up for, the endless circuit training did not kill my enthusiasm but it can. My son said at one point that he was wondering what it was all about until he got to cloud base on day… and I don't think anyone ever took him XC during training. I have tried to persuade our club to stop the clock and some point and say to students at some point, "this is not being charged for… we're going to fly somewhere for an hour to show you why we all do it." I'm sure it would make a big difference to the number of pilots who drop out after going solo. But then we don't have something like the DG which would make getting home more likely than in a Grob or K21 :-) D _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list Aus-soaring@lists.internode.on.net To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list Aus-soaring@lists.internode.on.net To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2015.0.5645 / Virus Database: 4273/9029 - Release Date: 01/31/15 _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list Aus-soaring@lists.internode.on.net To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
