jeb@eisx.UUCP (Jim Beckman) (12/02/83)
One additional thought on flying lessons for someone who is just starting out: If you think you will eventually want both glider and power ratings, it will be cheaper to get the power rating first. Once you've got the power rating, the transition into gliders is pretty easy - usually about ten dual flights before solo. Then the requirements to get ready for the flight test are minimal. You can easily add the rating in a week if you have a lot of time and enough money. Also, if you have a power rating, there is no additional written test for the glider rating. Note that I said this will get you the glider *rating*. This doesn't imply that you will know how to **soar**. That really only comes through experience, hard work, and practice. But it's WORTH IT!!! Jim Beckman ATTISL, South Plainfield, NJ
kco@rabbit.UUCP (12/03/83)
Jim Beckman concluded that getting a glider rating AFTER power training doesn't mean you'll know how to soar. I agree and would like to take that thought a bit further and suggest that if you get your glider rating FIRST, you'll not only know how to soar, but you'll become a better power pilot faster. In the long run, that could prove the real economy over any immediate cost comparison. Besides, the incremental cost of taking either rating before the other is small compared to the total outlay. So the decision should turn on other considerations. If you tackle soaring first, you will become more comfortable and adept with steep turns at low speeds- you will learn to recognize, with greater sensitivity, the onset of the stall. You will become far more practiced at stall recovery such that you will always perform quickly, correctly and with confidence. Your landings will become more precise at an earlier stage in your training because they have to be- no go-arounds. You will likely develop a smooth touch much sooner in a sailplane. In all, you'll come out of sailplane training with a finer hone on basic skills. You'll be safer training in a glider. And the FAA agrees- you can solo a sailplane 2 years earlier, at age 14. Touchdown speeds are 30-40 mph higher in a power plane- and recall that energy increases as the square of the speed. There's no tank of liquid dynamite on a sailplane. If you later transition to power, you will respect and suspect that engine for what it really is, a faithless liability. And when it quits on you, you'll be sharp and practiced in motorless flight. What the power pilots call "turbulence", you will know better as nature's free energy gift, a thermal. You will early, as a fledgling, share your thermal with a feathered glider- and you will rejoice in the wonder. For more of this kind of inspiration, read "Once Upon a Thermal", by Richard Wolters. Call the Soaring Society of America, (213) 390-4448, for the name of the nearest commercial or club operation. They'll send you some brochures if you ask. And if you're a new or would-be student pilot, forget about games with the FAA tests and parlaying a this rating into that. Do it right, first learn how to fly well the easy way- in a sailplane.
hyder@hammer.UUCP (Paul K. Hyder) (12/04/83)
Interesting discussion of sailplane vs. power. My choice was made
after flying a little in both.
I chose power planes for two reasons:
1. It's easier to go somewhere in a power plane.
2. The cost per hour in the air was identical. In
my case no reduced rate clubs were available.
It is true that the flying in gliders was more fun. As to the note
about stalls and their recovery practice it was my experience that
the gliders didn't really stall the same way. Recovery was much
different.
The result is a choice of use. What do you want to do? (Hobby or
Transportation) Then local costs figure in.
Paul Hyder {...!tektronix!tekecs!hyder}
P.S. One note about flying clubs. Don't assume that an organization
requires affiliation. Many university flying/soaring clubs take
anyone. Tektronix has a flying club that is low priced and open
to anyone. (Information on request.)