The Big Blue Schoolhouse in the Sky
                                        . . . by Jim Kellett, CFI

What's a "Big Blue Schoolhouse"?  It's a lot more than the Little Red Schoolhouse of legend.  It's  the university all pilots attend for the rest of their lives once they set out to become pilots.  There's lots of study in the traditional classroom and in the cockpit of a glider to get started - however, the learning process never ends and every flight for the rest of your life will be a learning experience.

Flying of any sort is inherently dangerous. After all, we seek to move at relatively high velocities in machines above the ground - elementary physics and logic define any such position in time and space as inherently more risky than being at rest and on the ground.  That's why the Club's Training Program heavily emphasizes both safety and competence; we desire to enjoy this activity with an minimum amount of risk.

In addition, our members are proud of our "culture of safety" which assures that attention to safety matters is the primary guiding force in our flight operations and that every club member - not just instructors - recognizes and accepts his/her responsibility for assuring safety.  For more information on safety issues, click HERE.

Overview

The Skyline Soaring Club's training program includes training for the ab initio student (i.e., people who have never flown an aircraft before) as well as "add on" training for transition pilots who hold other ratings.   Training for FAA Private, Commercial, and Flight Instructor (Glider) ratings is available.

The Training Program uses the series of SSA and FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) badges as the primary milestones for progress for all pilots in the training program.  While it's not a rigid schedule, the new glider pilot will usually obtain a PPL/G (Private Pilot License/Glider) or CPL/G (Commercial Pilot License/Glider) after the first three or four of these badges.  With the appropriate FAA license, the member can then be accompanied by friends and family as passengers. 

Training at Skyline does not, however, "end" with the accomplishment of any particular FAI badge or any particular FAA certificate.  Club instructors include individuals who are proficient at training aerobatic flight and cross-country flying.  The emphasis on "badge flying" continues throughout a member's flying career, up to and including the Diamond badge.  Several members, including some instructors, are also active competition pilots who encourage and help members who are interested in this aspect break into competitive soaring. 

All Skyline Soaring Club instructors are "SSA Instructors" who particpate in the various programs of the Soaring Safety Foundation (SSF) and are empowered to award the first four badges (A, B, C, and Bronze) of the SSA/FAI badge series.  To see a list of current Club instructors (some with brief biographies) with e-mail addresses, click HERE.

What to Expect

Safe and competent sailplane pilots require learning in three different "domains" which overlap.
    A "Knowledge" Domain - the explicit academic stuff such as aerodynamics, FAA rules, etc. You get this in classroom-like experiences (e.g., "ground school"), independent reading, consulting with flight instructors and others, etc. It's "things you know that you know" and can not only recite, but remember at the time you need them.
    A "Skills" Domain - the implicit physical stuff such as eye-hand-foot coordination, scanning techniques, integrating aural, visual, and physical cues into flight.  You get this by seeing a maneuver performed and then practicing, practicing, practicing.  It's the "things you know but didn't know you knew" and which your body performs without having to think about it.  This is the area where it is critical that good habits be developed from the very beginning.
   An "Experience" Domain - the judgment stuff such as knowing when to apply explicit facts to a given situation or which implicit action should be selected.  You get this by experience (re-read the first paragraph on this page!).  It's the "things you know how to discover" without having ever actually done them; some may call it wisdom. 

Each of these domains require different teaching/learning strategies. Every pilot differs somewhat in their aptitude for acquiring these skills and in the ease with which he/she masters them to an acceptable degree. 

Will I Get Airsick?

It's possible, at least in the beginning, but not likely if reasonable precautions are taken.  While it's possible to make ANYONE airsick (no one is immune), people vary widely in their sensitivity to motion sickness, and most people have no such sensations learning to fly gliders.  As a very rough rule of thumb, passengers tend to be much more vulnerable than pilots! So even if there is some discomfort on the very first few flights, when the instructor is demonstrating things for you, it's likely to go away as you take more and more control of the flight. It is extremely unlikely that any discomfort will persist beyond the first few flights.

If you know you have a predisposition to motion sickness, tell your instructor before you take off on the first flight!  He/she can take steps in the air to minimize discomfort, and/or recommend some simple preventative measures to assure that your first flights are comfortable.  Do not take antihistamine-based motion sickness preventatives!! They interfere with your alertness and ability to learn.  If you know you are particularly vulnerable to motion sickness, consult your physician before beginning flight instruction - some remedies (e.g., scopolamine patches) may be useful in some cases.  

How Long Will it Take?

People very widely in the time required to reach particular milestones in flying (e.g., first solo, license, various badges, etc.) and there is no pat answer to this question.  Generally, younger people learn faster than older people, and people with some experience in flying learn faster than those with none.

In general, you will learn faster and better if flight instruction can be concentrated in time - that is, try to fly as much as possible each day you are on the field, and try to schedule flying days as closely together as possible. This is particularly important to the beginning student, although "currency" is important to all pilots all the time.  (A general rule is to "fly until you are tired, but don't fly when you are tired.")  Scheduling flight time may be harder that it appears at first!  But be patient and work with one or more Club instructors to schedule your flying.   

An early big milestone is the first solo flight, earning the SSA "A" Badge.  As a very crude rule of thumb, the ab initio student pilot can expect to reach this stage after about as many dual instructional flights as his/her age.  Transition pilots' requirements are generally much less, but vary considerably based on their currency and experience.

How Much Will it Cost?

It depends on how much flight instruction is required.  While the costs of a single flight vary from as little as $15- $20 (for a "rope break", e.g.) to as much as $85 (for an hour's soaring flight in the K-21), MOST training flights run $35 - $45 each for a 15 - 20 minute flight from a 3000' tow..  A typical training day will include anywhere from one to a half-dozen (on rare occasions, more) flights, depending on the weather, where you are in the syllabus, and the schedule.

This is, of course, in addition to the initiation fee and annual dues.  

The Initial Syllabus 

There is a syllabus/checklist in the back of one of the required texts that members may find useful to get a sense of the tasks they'll be working on.  However, the Club uses a customized combination syllabus/checklist to measure progress of student pilot members through the first milestones of a member's flying career.  That syllabus is tailored to flying in our area and to the unique procedures used at our primary training airport. View Training Document [ HTML ]

If you are a member, access your training syllabus, updated with your progress here: [ HTML ] [ PDF ]

While the syllabus provides a ROUGH chronological order in which you'll be experiencing things, each flight lesson will be tailored by your instructor to the conditions on that day and your skill level. GENERAL HINT: Your progress through the flight instruction program will be greatly facilitated by your having read well ahead in the texts.

It is normal to experience one or more learning plateaus (when performance seems to get worse than before) during flight instruction, and it's not uncommon to have more than one "eureka moment" when suddenly things come together unexpectedly.  These are characteristics of learning in the Implicit Domain which everyone experiences at one time or another..

Texts and Other Materials

The Club requires the purchase of several items at various stages in training, and provides each member with a supplementary list of recommended materials and other useful texts for filling out the soaring library.  Available for download is a list of the required/recommended materials: [ PDF ]  Most of the "Required" materials on this list are available to Club members at a discount by purchase through the Club.

The Club's required training manual, the Glider Flying Handbook (FAA 8083-13) is available from several vendors, including "Soarbooks" (see ).  It is also available free as a direct download from the FAA - see faa-8083-13.pdf

Don't forget the addendum:faa-8083-13_addendum.pdf

These are also available as a download from our own Club website (see "Documents").  CAUTION:  The clarity of the downloaded version is far from ideal, making some sections a little difficult to read, and it's a huge file (>20 MB), so don't try  this with a dialup!

Some optional or recommended reading materials are also available to members at a discount.  The include the excellent series of topical texts from Bob Wander (see http://bobwander.com).  

Several videotapes are available for viewing in the Club hangar.  Some are provided by the Soaring Safety Foundation, and cover specific topics; the list is continually expanding.  There are a few videotapes made by instructors at Front Royal, demonstrating the proper view in a normal landing takeoff and aerotow. 

Ground School Instruction (Preparation for FAA Written Exams)

Ab initio students are required to take a written FAA examination.  You must have an endorsement from a flight instructor or school to take this test.  

Skyline does not currently provide formal ground training in preparation for the FAA written test(s). You may want to discuss one-on-one training with an instructor of your choice, with arrangements made separately from the Club.s training program.

Web Exams, http://www.webexams.com/, generate practice tests from the entire database of FAA questions. 

"Kip's Practice Exams", http://www.exams4pilots.org/, are just that - web-based sample tests.

PowerPoint Briefings from Skyline Instructors

Joe Parrish attended the 1999 CFI(G) Seminar in Julian, PA, and presented a summary of that meeting to the Club's instructors at one of the regular Club Instructors' Caucuses - click HERE

Joe also wrote a very nice article comparing the operational planning or shuttle launch aborts to PT3 incidents in gliders - it was published in the  issue of SOARING magazine (q.v.) and he made a presentation on it at a Club Instructors' Caucus in .   Click HERE

Jim Kellett presented an FAA Safety Seminar in 2003 on Collision Avoidance in Gliders.  A presentation expanding on that topic, covering "see and avoid" and technology aids, is available HERE (for any browser, faster loading, fewer graphics) or HERE (much slower loading, more graphics, requires IE browser).

Other Interesting Links on Training

Without a doubt, the Soaring Society of America's website, at http://www.ssa.org/, is an excellent starting point.  You'll also find a link there to the Soaring Safety Foundation at http://www.soaringsafety.org/ which, in turn, has a number of very useful links to things like FAA publications. 

There's a great link from a retired glider DPE on the most common errors leading to failure of a PPL(G) Practical Test - see http://home.att.net/~jdburch/topten.htm

Information about the SSA and FAI badges, including application forms, can be found at http://www.ssa.org/myhome.asp?mbr=5361749529

Occasionally interesting training topics are posted on the newsgroup rec.aviation.soaring - however, be aware that this is a newsgroup in which a great deal of irrelevant, inaccurate, or misleading information may be found!  Read with caution!