About

Here at GlidingSchool.com the aim is to enhance the learning experience of people learning to fly gliders, 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.

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

GlidingSchool.com was developed by glider pilot Simon Stannard, with the support and assistance of senior instructors at Derbyshire & Lancashire Gliding Club, notably Brian Allen and David Salmon, to whom I am most grateful.

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.

Gliding lessons available any time

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.

Improving instructor capacity

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 before their flight together.

Complete and consistent briefings

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

Training when you can’t fly

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 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 away from the airfield

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

Stay involved, stay current

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.

A word about the videos

We are working on developing the format of these, to include audio and easy-to-read on-screen messages. The initial videos are recordings of the exercise as viewed in Condor. They include text messages describing the action and learning points. The messages are most easily read on a large screen, and you may need to pause to read them before you continue. Unlike a real world flying lesson, they can be paused, rewound and repeated on demand. As the Animated versions of the videos are added to replace the original ‘Condor versions’, we are also publishing Unanimated versions for use with an instructor.

Basis of supply

These lessons are provided free of charge, without warranty, for use by individuals and gliding clubs on a non-commercial basis.