Scott Manley is a glider flight instructor and writer for
Soaring Magazine. He was my first instructor and the two of us spent a number
of months flying together. This week we met for the first time. Yes, the last
two sentences are in chronological order. I did my initial training in a
networkable soaring simulator with me on Cape Cod and Scott in Wisconsin. Scott
could see what I was doing in real-time, and if the scenario called for it, we
could even fly separate gliders in the same virtual airspace.
Scott didn’t take any compensation for this. Our pact (some
old-school instructors may say it was a pact with the devil) was that when I
went for flight training in a real glider I wouldn’t tell my instructors of my
simulator experience. Scott’s rationalization for this was that convincing
Luddite glider instructors in the value of simulation training would be more
effective if we take them by surprise. It was an effective strategy, and I had
my instructors thinking either I was the greatest student they ever had, or that
they suddenly became the Jedi Masters of teaching. Neither was true, but it did
help to prove Scott’s point once I fessed up.
So after all this time I finally got to shake Scott’s hand,
and help him spread the word of simulation-based glider training here at the
Soaring Society of America tent at AirVenture. If you ever wanted to fly
sailplanes I’m happy to help get you started, and you won't have to make a pact with the devil.
David
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