More student feedback on 2012 CCSC XC Camp

Lyle Chamberlain (I) posted a bunch of material and a series of videos about the camp on his blog, available at http://www.lylechamberlain.com/life/soaring.  This is great stuff, so I urge you to jump over there and take a look!

———————  Feedback from John Dudley (D2) ———————————————-

My apologies for not getting this feedback to you sooner.  The XC Camp was a very busy week for me, as I’m sure it was for you, and left me little time for things other than flying and maintaining my marriage in a manner that that would allow continued flying.

I thought the XC Camp was very well done and I truly appreciate all of the effort that was put forth to make it the success it was.  The weather helped, but without the planning and preparation that you, Rolf, and others put in it, the XC Camp clearly would not have been a success with good weather or bad.
I see camps like this one as a very much needed in the soaring community.  Especially for newer sailplane pilots like me who would like to go XC and even compete.  Thank you for providing that opportunity!
So… was it a very educational and worthwhile event for me?  Yes, very much so.  Was it everything I had hoped and desired? No, but I fully understand the difficulties, or more correctly, impossibility of making an event like that perfect for everyone in attendance.
I really do not have any constructive criticism other than was expressed by others on Friday morning.  I would be in favor of eliminating the evening lecture and replace it with a detailed debrief of the day.  I feel the information and learning shared during that debrief would be more relevant and educational than lecture. BUT…  I feel this would be much more valuable if we all flew the same air (i.e. same “task” or course) which did not happen most, if not all the time at the XC Camp.
One example from a very similar camp from my hang glider days is a fun competition where teams compete on the same set task each day with a point structure set up to encourage the mentor to assist all of his team members to complete the task.  There are no time, speed, or distance points, only completed or not completed (a simplification, but I’m sure you get the general idea).  I see a huge benefit in this being that, during the debrief at the end of the day, everyone flew the same air, same conditions, same terrain, etc., so the debrief is very relevant and informative to everyone involved.  This event is more geared to be a fun way for pilots wanting to learn to go XC to do so; however, one or two teams (depending on how many are interested that year) do “race” the task.  These teams are people who have expressed an interest and desire in racing so they are put into one of those teams.
I was expecting/hoping that a daily task would have been set for all groups to fly so we could practice flying a real task in RL, but that was not the case.  So my suggestion would be to ask participants up front whether they just want to start/improve their XC flying, or do this with contest participation in mind.  Maybe you would end up with an experienced contest group like the one you had last week and a “beginning” contest group.  That way at least two groups would fly the same air and the beginners could learn a great deal from the experienced group during the debrief while also learning some XC racing techniques.
Ok… I’ve rambled on long enough.  If you made it this far I’ll say once again… Thank you for facilitating the XC Camp and for all the time and effort you put in to making it the success that it was!  Well done.
Regards,
John Dudley (D2)