CUGC Monday Flying
Organising Winter Flying proved to be more challenging than anticipated. As a beneficiary of this scheme last year, I disagreed with the first-come-first-served basis slots being allocated with. For this reason, I decided to restructure the way members signed up for slots. This system involves considering the experience of the attendees, the types of instructor volunteering, how many times one had flown, amongst other things. Though more complicated, this system was fairer than the previous one, so I happily organised every Monday manually.
I am proud to say that, under my organisation, Monday winter flying days have had an average of three instructors per day, which is one more than last year. Furthermore, to prevent the instructor capacity from being wasted on the ground, CUGC launched a buddy scheme that used current solo pilots to train new members. These solo pilots ran the ground operations and taught ground handling to the new trainees, one of which is now a Launch Point Assistant after only having been a member for a few months.
Through the co-operation of current solo pilots and the enthusiasm of new members, we have had approximately 240 member launches on flyable days. Unfortunately, some of these Mondays have to be shared with other CGC members that need a two-seater, such as those days in which Aerobatics are done. This means that our capacity has been artificially limited due to CUGC not having our own two-seater. Recognising this issue, CUGC has tried to work its way towards the purchase of an ASK-21 by running a total of Trial Flights throughout the Mondays.
We managed to organise 55 trial flights during Monday flying sessions which, although great economically, also reduced the capacity for current members to fly. On average, each member who signed up for Monday flying was able to attend 1.7 sessions. With a target of 3 sessions after accounting for cancellations, CUGC will certainly need a two-seater moving forwards to provide with sufficient training during the winter. For this reason, we encourage donations of any size to help us reach that goal.
Caleb Akhtar Martínez (Flying Coordinator 2022-23)