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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!rabbit!kco
From: kco@rabbit.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Flying lessons and choices
Message-ID: <2242@rabbit.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Dec-83 20:28:58 EST
Article-I.D.: rabbit.2242
Posted: Fri Dec  2 20:28:58 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Dec-83 06:06:57 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 41


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.