Soaring – August 2019

8 Soaring • August 2019 • http://www.ssa.org

Preface
With this article, I am introducing
a new subsegment called “While I’m
thinking about it,” so:

While I’m thinking about it
I would like to share a flight in-
struction related, mini-epiphany that
occurred as I prepared to help out at
an event hosted several times a sum-
mer by the Minnesota Soaring Club
(MSA) as its contribution to the larger
Minnesota Aviation Career Educa-
tion (ACE) Camp. This year, in ad-
dition to providing glider rides, MSA
organizers asked Paul Remde (owner
of Cumulus Soaring, Inc., MSA club
member, and all-around great guy) to
provide glider flight simulation expe-
riences for the attendees. Besides just
keeping the young adults (ages 14-
18) occupied while they wait for their
rides, the simulation experience would
be an opportunity to better prepare
them for their flights, have them learn
more about the sport of soaring, and,
as aviation career candidates, experi-
ence the benefits of simulation-based
flight training.
Knowing I had experience providing
simulation-based training at KidVen-
ture, the Experimental Aircraft As-
sociation’s youth venue at AirVenture
(Oshkosh), Paul invited me to help
out at ACE Camp. It was his men-
tion of having a full simulation setup,
including rudder pedals, that sparked
my epiphany.
My experience with the thousands
of kids at Oshkosh, aside from the fact
their short little legs usually couldn’t
reach the floor-based rudder pedals,
was that introducing yaw control as

part of learning to turn an aircraft was

like introducing the third ball into a

juggling lesson, in that the introduc-

tion is best preceded by mastery of

more fundamental skills. In the case

of juggling, learning first to control

only two balls; in the case of turning

a glider, learning first to control bank

(roll) at a constant airspeed.

I now realize I need to rework my

Turning_Flight lesson to introduce

yaw control only after the student

has first mastered the combination of

roll/bank control in coordination with

pitch-based airspeed control (learned

in a prior lesson). Condor makes this

easy. It has an “Auto Rudder” setting

that automatically coordinates rudder

deflection with aileron inputs, allow-

ing the student to concentrate on roll

and pitch control. If I were still do-

ing aircraft-based flight instruction

(see next section), I would employ the

same method by assuming responsi-

bility for yaw control until the student

had mastered the stick commands re-

quired to roll in and out of turns at a

predetermined airspeed.

This is yet another example of teach-

ing complex topics by breaking them

down into smaller pieces.

And

While I’m thinking about it

The latest release of the Condor

software supports Virtual Reality

(VR) headset technology. Being the

technophile he is, Paul Remde had his

Condor station set up with VR at the

ACE camp. Paul’s notion was to pro-

vide an exhilarating experience for the

young participants to help promote

the sport. He succeeded. Everybody

who tried it loved it. VR certainly is

an exciting marketing tool and I am

looking at getting Condor/VR setup

for the promotion work the SSA does

at AirVenture Oshkosh.

I had been looking forward to try-

ing VR and it truly is amazing. Jamie

Shore at the Soaring Club of Houston

informed me that using VR dramati-

cally improved landing pattern train-

ing, so I tried flying a couple landing

approaches on Paul’s setup at ACE

camp. Jamie was right; spectacular!

Over the years, I have attempted to

keep the cost and complexity of my in-

structional offering to a minimum, but

after experiencing VR, I need to give

some serious thought to how I might

incorporate this technology into my

curriculum.

And, finally ...

While I’m thinking about it

Over the last 40 years, having both

received and provided aircraft-based

flight training, I have come to the

conclusion that from the student’s

perspective, that paradigm is in large

part a huge waste of time and money

when compared with simulation-

based flight training, especially when

done at-a-distance.

More recently, however, I have come

to the conclusion that, as an instruc-

tor, aircraft-based flight training is

also a huge waste of my limited time

on this planet. In the same sense that

“the worst place to learn to fly is in

an aircraft,” “the worst place to teach

someone to fly is also in an aircraft.”

To that end, I have decided to fo-

cus my attention solely on simulation-

based flight training, primarily at-a-

distance. After efficiently helping folks

learn 80-90% of what they need to

know to fly a glider, I will simply refer

them to one or more of the country’s

fine commercial glider operations to

complete their “aircraft-based experi-

ence training.”

I’m done instructing in real aircraft.

Where Aerotow Wings-Level Fits

into My Curriculum (Figure 1)

Aerotow – Wings Level

TEaCHING SOarING

BY SCOTT MANLEY, CFI-G