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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0466.PDF
462 FLIGHT GLIDER TRAINING A Slow Revolution Begins to Show Results By ANN DOUGLAS DURING the post-war years the gliding clubs have made great changes in their training methods. The aim has been (or should be) to make not merely competent airfield-circuiteers, but good soaring pilots. Faced with successions of pupils in their early stages, the people concerned are sometimes liable to overlook this objective. Before the war the Germans developed a method of training glider pilots solo, by using a simple, cheap primary, and large crews of disciplined pupils to operate it with a hand catapult— crude, but effective in that the objects of regimentation and physical fitness were automatically attained. When gliding came to England we started with the same system. Breakages occurred fairly often, but were seldom more than a joke : the glider could be completely replaced for £50, and personal damage, if suffered at all, was usually of the football-field kind. The inherent shortcomings of the solo system in producing accurate pilots did not become obvious, as the pupils' initiative, and determination to pioneer cross-country flying, were certainly equal to the performance of the majority of gliders of the time. Then the catapult gave place to the more efficient winch, and during the war the A.T.C. adopted the Cadet glider for solo training. This machine was never designed as a primary. It was more expensive, the existence of a cockpit could cause head injuries, and it did not have the parachuting or butterfly qualities of a well-designed primary—qualities necessary until the pupil has found out where he is, and what he is trying to do. At the end of the war Cadets were in full production, and it was therefore possible in those difficult days for the clubs to get re-started with them more easily than with anything else. But it was soon found that accidents were more injurious than pre-war, and were prohibitively costly. It was also found that, whereas solo-trained pilots had managed to fumble round fairly safely on the light, slow-medium-performance gliders of the thirties, they did not seem able to compete very well on the heavier, faster, but eminently safe Olympias. The tricks of manoeuvring that they had taught themselves on, say, the old light Grunau somehow did not work in the new era. The accident-rate worsened, insurance rates rose, and the position became generally unsatisfactory. If gliding was to grow up, it had to be stopped cutting its own throat, and the answer lay in proper teaching from the start. This was not possible with solo training, as so much thought and effort were required to keep the glider whole during the pupils' experiments that the object of learning to fly, as such, became very secondary. When Slingsby produced the T.zib two-seater, it was found to be just what was needed, and slowly—started by the Surrey and Imperial College Gliding Clubs—the change-over to dual training took place. But it is one thing to have two-seaters and another to teach in them. Because solo training is really self- teaching, responsible club members could be put on to running solo lines while still inexperienced as pilots. This usually meant that if they did the job at all well they got stuck at the launching point, and had even less opportunity for flying themselves. When two-seaters were introduced it was natural that these unselfish people should fly them, and become dual instructors. Immediately fresh problems arose. Instructors found that there was a great deal more in teaching flying than had perhaps been realized; that they were unfamiliar with the idea of sitting in a glider and keeping their hands off the controls; and that the pupils they had trained to fly solo showed up as rough, untidy pilots quite unable to keep a good look-out. There was no instructors' school to which they could go, no manuals that they could read; so they just had to get on with the job. In some cases, where the instructors had had experience of teaching in aeroplanes, they were able to operate with an un expectedly high degree of safety. But in general the problem was immense, and not owing to any fault on the part of the clubs. They were doing the best they could with mainly voluntary, part-time instructors, and had to learn from their own mistakes. In due course the British Gliding Association brought into being the Instructors' Panel, which visited clubs and examined instructors. It produced a manual of two-seater instruction, and introduced an Accident Analysis Panel which commented on, and docketed for statistical purposes, all untoward happenings. THE author of this article, Mrs. Ann C. Douglas, M.B.E., A.R.Ae.S., F.R.Met.S., has been one of the moving spirits in the British gliding movement almost from its inception, both as a pilot and an organizer. She is vice-chairman of the British Gliding Association, and chairman of the Association's Instructors' Panel. She was captain of the successful British team in last year's International Gliding Contest in Spain. With all this, she manages to find time to sail boats, write books on gliding, and bring up a family. That the clubs themselves were keen to improve the position was shown by the fact that even some incidents which could easily have been glossed over and forgotten were voluntarily reported. But there was little real improvement in the position until quite recently. When the figures for 1952 became available they showed a marked drop in breakages during dual training and the following early solo flying, although there was little improvement among pilots doing more advanced stuff. This is understandable. Pilots (even of many years' standing) who were largely untrained in the first place are more likely to have accidents than are those who have had the benefit of a thorough elementary training. There were still unfortunate accidents in the very few clubs who clung to the old idea, but it is probable that 1953 will show that solo training is no longer effectively with us. Visits to clubs last year showed that the standard of training flying was good, and that instructors were working not only with enthusiasm but with considerable competence. The greatly increased flying-time that they have been able to accumulate with two-seaters has given them confidence as instructors, together with an appreciation of good flying which they had never been able to acquire before. New instructors are being trained in the clubs, and are beginning to build up a record of safe training which, if setbacks are avoided, can quite quickly become a tradition. It may be argued that this has taken years to come about and that, anyway, "it's early days yet." The criticism may be valid, but the change-over has been made in difficult circumstances. Gliders are expensive, and the clubs get no financial help other than loans from the Kemsley Trust. Winches are old and cannot keep pace with the demand for launches. Clubs are isolated from each other, and voluntary instructors have little time to go visiting and get the benefit of other people's ideas. Gliding instruction is a skilled job, and one that is not directly comparable with aeroplane training. Each lesson is inevitably limited by time and height. The technique must take account of these facts, and eliminate disadvantages which might hinder training by streamlining and altering the method. Above all, gliding is a sport, to be indulged in as desired by people who want to do it in their own free time. There is, very properly, no discipline in any sport other than that imposed by example, experience and leadership, qualities which do not grow like weeds. The clubs are open to anyone interested in flying, and they take on pupils of all sorts, however improbable, and do the best they can with them. There is a great deal yet to be learned about instructing, about meteorology and about advanced equipment-design. Unlike many other activities, gliding still has room for the pioneer. If it were to become quite accident-free, it could do so only at the expense of development and enterprise. The job of the instructor is to see that his pupil leaves him safely trained and properly equipped to shape his own airborne future. AERONAUTICAL HISTORY FILMSTRIP SPECIALISTS in visual-education aids, Educational Produc tions, Ltd., have recently prepared a filmstrip (No. 5031, The Early History of Flight) to their general science series. Of 35 mm size for standard filmstrip projectors, its 43 frames illus trate various steps in the history of flight, from da Vinci to Bleriot, curiosities and practical achievement being nicely assorted. With the strip, at the moderate price of 15s, goes an admirably com posed 25-page booklet of lecture-notes, the name of the author (C. H. Gibbs-Smith, M.A., F.M.A., F.R.S.A., Comp.R.Ae.S.) being a more than sufficient guarantee of accuracy. Educational Productions, Ltd., have offices at 17 Denbigh Street, London, S.W.i, and East Ardsley, Wakefield, Yorks.
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