WHAT'S YOUR HURRY?

Every week, power pilots who otherwise seem to take aviation seriously inquire how quickly or how cheaply they can get their ‘add-on’ glider rating. We even hear it referred to facetiously as 'punching the ticket'. Failing to appreciate the profound benefits and differences of flying without artificial thrust, all they see is a trivial novelty or a way to avoid one biennial Flight Review. Sadder still are those who have no real interest at all, but can no longer pass a physical...

The common denominator: for one reason or another they always believe it's terribly important to get past that checkride ASAP! And lots of them do. This amounts to yet another variant of get-there-itis, dread disease in which the infected risk making victims of more than just themselves. Hide by the runway some Sunday afternoon and watch; these 'ad-on' jockeys are also the ones most apt to revert to habit and try to land their glider as if it had... horsepower. Fact is, you don't have to blow yourself up to get hurt.

The minimum requirement for previously licensed single-engine pilots is ten solos for a private glider rating and twenty for a commercial. That’s nuts. I should know, because I played this minimal game myself – and proved how little any 'ticket' is worth without practical understanding and genuine skill.

Why not take your time and enjoy it? Indulge in some humility for once and practice learning the art! Otherwise you're fooling only yourself and going nowhere faster than need be, certification or no.

And then there are those who've been familiar with gliders for several months now and simply cannot wait to become instructors. As if! What they really need is to gain some actual experience, not be in a rush to expose their ignorance. But try telling them that.

To teach anything, shouldn't you want to know more than as little as possible about it? True, the regulations allow anybody to be a CFIG with no requirement for demonstrating ability to keep the aircraft aloft. But that too is nuts. You can spend precious time and money collecting ratings fast as you like, but without a bit of background each one will bring the same embarrassment again, at a higher level.

You can do better.