About

glidingschool.com supports student glider pilots by providing additional resources suitable for self-briefing and the reinforcement of skills taught by qualified gliding instructors. It focuses on the how to when learning the skills required to go solo. There are many other excellent resources online that focus on the theory, but do not show you how to apply the skills.

glidingschool.com provides lessons which comprise:

• a written briefing describing the key learning points,
• a video demonstration of the flight exercise, illustrating the key learning points, and
• an exercise that can be flown in the Condor2 Soaring Simulator to learn and practise the key skills, also enabling instructor guidance and skills assessment, either in person or remotely.

Using these additional learning resources will help student pilots to thoroughly prepare for their flight training and thereby accelerate their progression to solo.

Instructors are supported by the provision of online Briefings. These are designed to be complete, crisp and BGA compliant:

• Complete: covering the entire pre-solo syllabus, and all the soaring subjects, all topics are addressed in a set of 18 modules. Each of these provides the framework and content for a briefing lasting 40-60 minutes.
• Crisp: structured as a set of headings, with supporting text, diagrams and videos accessed by ‘digging deeper’ (topics marked with a triangle, like this section), you can tailor the content to suit the audience.
• Compliant: created as part of my own instructor training, the content has been reviewed against the BGA’s Instructor Manual and bolstered by the great depth of experience of my seniors.

And of course, they’re consistent too.

glidingschool.com makes the lessons available in any place, at any time, to anyone with an internet connection. So, for example, student pilots can brief themselves on their upcoming training flights at home on the day before their training, or at the club during breakfast. Or even on the airfield for a quick refresh immediately before their training flight.

Instructors familiar with the content of the lessons will direct their next student to the relevant content for pre-flight preparation, while they instruct the previous student in-flight. On return, the instructor will assess the next student’s understanding of their upcoming lesson, saving themselves considerable time providing an in-depth briefing before their flight together.

The instructor led briefings provide all you need to deliver in-depth theory briefings covering the entire pre-solo syllabus and beyond. The briefings can be tailored to suit the audience, from an overview or refresher, to an in-depth presentation.

glidingschool.com also gives clubs with access to a Condor2 simulator a complete and consistent set of briefings, demonstrations and exercises to be flown in Condor2’s Flight School under instructor supervision.

Jointly, these will support daily briefings for one or more trainees, through to providing the material needed to deliver a complete pre-solo course to a whole class of trainees.

Simulator based instruction enables training to take place at any time, even when real-life flying is not possible.

glidingschool.com provides the material to enable such instruction to take place at short notice, in a consistent and comprehensive way, with minimal preparation required beforehand. This may well broaden the appeal and encourage more instructors to deliver classroom and simulator based training when the opportunities arise.

Of course, such training can be scheduled in advance, facilitating a full winter training schedule to prepare pre-solo pilots for a head start on the upcoming season.

Training no longer needs to take place in a fixed location: The availability of video conferencing services makes it possible to schedule classroom and simulator based training over an internet connection.

The briefing material can be presented online.

The demonstrations can be viewed online.

The exercises can be flown in Condor2 by the student, while the instructor reviews and guides their performance in real time from their own home.

Shared use of the lessons provided by glidingschool.com ensure the students are working from a known briefing and flying the same exercises as at the club, and with which the instructor is already familiar.

So now even instructors who cannot attend the club can continue to teach in a very meaningful way. And pilots who have had a long lay-off can refresh their skills, and be reviewed by their instructors before they even get to the club!

We all know that, like elephants, instructors never forget. But if they were to think they might, during a long winter perhaps, the lessons and exercises at glidingschool.com provide a great way to refresh the patter, with or without a simulator.

Whilst there’s still a lot of ground to be covered by a trainee instructor, glidingschool.com removes the need to develop your own briefings, whilst the student lessons allow trainee instructors to develop and practise the patter.