In message <e6rmfc$c6h$***@news.ox.ac.uk>, Gail <***@thismail.com>
writes
Post by GailPost by StefanSometimes, yes, but in this case: No!
As you said, it's a pre-solo student, and as such she should discuss her
problems with her instructors and with nobody else, because those
instructors know her, have actually seen her flying and (as hopefully
competent instrucors) can judge what her problems are. Better than some
unknown strangers in cyberspace anyway, who don't even know which type
of glider she's flying.
K21 apparently!
If she's an ab initio, she likely to be flying a two seat ship. Most clubs
train on K13s, K21s, twin Astirs or DG 500s for example. It's not a too
difficult a leap of imagination to figure it out!
And do these various ships all handle in a fairly similar way? That's
certainly the case with all multi-seat 'ships' used to teach dinghy
sailing.
The Club also has a DG 505 - I guess similar to a DG 500. Everyone of
us ab initios that has flown in it has loved it for it's smoothness and
responsiveness.
Post by GailPost by StefanPost by Surfer!flying with too many different instructors
Personally I found it very helpful to fly with different instructors.
Didn't nessecairily speed things up, but definitely gave me a braoder
view.
In my experience instructors are like school teachers. There good ones and
there are...shall we say, not so good ones. One learns most from the good
teachers and not so much from the not so good ones. The thing that does
annoy me somewhat though, is that some of them imagine that being an
instructor gives them an automatic right to be bl**dy arrogant!
The best instructors in my limited experience, are often professional pilots
either civilian or military. They're generally quietly confident, never
arrogant and never condescending. The crap ones in my experience, tend to be
all of those things.
Some of it is down to personality. Some people like a very didactic
style of teaching, other prefer a more experiential model, some of us
loved a good rough ride at the start when it was marginal for flying
(for anyone!) and others hated it. Some of us find it helps to get
overloaded with whatever the next thing is before we've quite mastered
the current thing as it helps us disengage brain from the current thing
and get on with it while we think about the next thing, others need to
get the current thing pretty solid before moving on to the next thing.
Some of us thrive on the idea of 'feel what's happening', others want to
have a more formal approach.
And, of course, many of us vary. Sometimes it helps to move on, other
times not. Also some days we fly well, other days it's rough. That
will be true for everyone of course, but as a novice the rough days are
really, really rough and probably rather more frequent as well.
Some of our best instructors are ex-forces, several others are ex-ATC,
but one is simply a glider bum - he started 15 years ago and has never
looked back! He is also an excellent instructor, at least for me, and
his real enthusiasm for the sport and commitment to getting us all in
the air is a huge asset for the club.
--
Surfer!
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