My Flying

In South Africa gliding is controlled by the SSSA, Soaring Society of South Africa. They regulate and control all aspects of gliding and are basically completely autonomous from the CAA.

To be able to fly a glider in SA you need to be a member of a gliding club recognised by the SSSA. This ensures that the club operates according to SSSA regulations and guidelines.

Traditionally glider training, at a gliding club, has been provided free of charge and the only requirement has been that you are a paid up member of a gliding club and that you contribute some of your time to the club.

Thus the training is essentially "free".

But what are the advantages and disadvantages of this free training?
Here they are from my personal point of view as a student:

Follow up:

Advantages:

1. Training is free and costs you no money.
2. You become a member of a club and can gather with people that have similar interest to you.
3. As the instructors work on a rotational basis you get a broad exposure to a large pool of knowledge and experience.
4. Flying gliders is a relatively inexpensive form of aviation.

Disadvantages:

1. Though you pay no money, you pay in time, and you pay dearly:

• As a member you need to perform duties, which is normally one or two entire weekend days per month.
• You sometimes arrive at the airfield only to discover that there will be no flying due to equipment problems or a shortage of members to help get you airborne, most notably the winch driver and instructor.
• You may be requested to perform other duties like participating on the club's committee and doing odd jobs around the hangar like fixing and cleaning things.
• In essence this is not a problem so long as everyone contributes and does their fair share. You will however need to mentally prepare yourself and your family for a large time sacrifices.

2. As the instructors work on a rotational basis you fly with a different one every week and there are some disadvantages:

• Serious inconsistencies in instruction between the instructors leads the student, especially the new one, to become very confused and they basically need to start making mental notes like, if instructor A then do X, but if instructor B then do Y and so on.
• Needing to put up with an instructor's bad moods and general nonsense, i.e. you can't fire him and go find another one. You are basically stuck with each other. (edit 20-07-2007: It seems as if this comment has struck some nerves. To explain: The flying is at all times professional. What I'm referring to is the politics and pettiness that takes place on the ground by some of the members, some of whom are also instructors.)

3. As flying takes place on one day of the weekend your flying instruction is really spread out. If you factor in bad weather and points 1 and 2 above you are looking at perhaps two flying days per month. Add to that an entire day at the airfield for perhaps a 30 minute instructional flight and you are looking at a very long process.

4. Generally gliding clubs are located near a General Flying Area (GF) or in a location suitable for gliding like near mountains, so that means a long drive from the major cities and thus more time.

Conclusion
Although the process is relatively cheap, money wise, it will cost you a lot of time and frustration, but at least your financial costs are spread over a nice long period.

Personally if I were to start again and money and facilities allowing, I would rather pay for my instruction. There are some club's in SA that offer this facility, but unfortunately for me, they are geographically too far away.