From: cohler@vxcrna.cern.ch (Mike Cohler)
Subject: Re: Transition Glider to Power
Followup-To: rec.aviation
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 09:28:00 GMT

In article <cshotton-190892155013@oac2.hsc.uth.tmc.edu>, 
cshotton@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Chuck Shotton) writes...
>In article <1992Aug19.154107.1217@sol.asl.hitachi.com>,
>josh@sol.asl.hitachi.com (Joshua Koslov) wrote:
>> 
>> Does anyone on the net have experience transitioning from glider to power? 
 I am a Private glider pilot with probably a couple hundred PIC flights;  I 
am condidering some power flying.  What have people found in terms of how 
their glider experience has
>> 
> lines deleted

>For what it's worth, very little of your glider time can be applied to your
>airplane rating. As I read it, only glider cross country time has a chance
>of applying, and I've never heard whether or not it does. The FARs aren't
> 
  In the UK things are different.  Here there is NO Glider licence.  Each club
allows its instructors to assess when a student is ready for solo, and
allows the first solo.  One solo there is a gradual progression of check
rides beginning with 1 on each day the student wants to solo, and gradually
reducing to about 1 check ride in every 20 solos, and finally the new solo
pilot can be finally cleared "off checks" once his competence to handle
any set of conditions has been fully demonstrated to the instructors.
Yes peple aim for certificates once solo, such as Bronze, Silver 'C' etc,
but there is no licence.   Normally you need a MINIMUM of 40 hours of training
to get a Private Pilot's Licence, but because of the method of training 
glider pilots in the UK, and with the regulated training of botih instructors
and student pilots, the CAA allows the minimum hours requirement to be reduced
from the 40 hours as follows:  For a Bronze level glider pilot, the minimum
hours becomes 23 , to get the PPL , and you need to do the General Flight Test
and the Navigation Flight Test, as well as take the writtens.  For a Silver 'C'
level glider pilot the minimum hours to PPL becomes 12 hours.  

In general instructors like training glider pilot to become power pilots as
the general level of flying ability is usually good, and the ability to
land a tricicle undercarriage plane is often almost inate for typical
glider pilots.  Often the very first flight in a C150 would have the glider
pilot do the landing with a talk through by the instructor.  

>As for how hard/easy it was, the flying part was no problem. The landings
>are substantially different. Most gliders are landed by flying them on, and
>that technique just leads to the "hop, skip, jump" style of power landings.
> 
I disagree with the statement above.  Here glider pilots are NEVER taught
to fly on a landing.  ALL instructors in gliding are required to teach fully
held off landings.   There are possibly still a few ancient instructors
around who were trained in the middle ages who might think that flown on
landings are the right thing, but this is NOT BGA POLICY in the UK.
Hence taking a spam can and doing the same tecnique of fully held off
landing usually reults in very little problem.

>The other "novelty" I ran into was dealing with ATC and the radio a LOT
>more than in gliders. Besides that, you just have to get used to the
>built-in thermal strapped to the nose.
> 
I agree here, and the use of radio is an importand new skill to be learned.
In fact it is useful to a glider pilot occasionally too.... he just might
one day need to talk to a ground station to request a radar let-down !!
==============================================================
|                                                            |
|        Mike Cohler -  preferred email address:             |
|                       MDC1@VAXA.YORK.AC.UK                 |
|                   ie  MDC1%VAXA.YORK.AC.UK@UKACRL.BITNET   |
|                                                            |
|        UK PPL and Glider Pilot                             |
|                                                            |
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