http://ozreport.com/13.187#6

Matt Taber at Lookout Mtn. Flight Park <<Fly>> writes:

I am glad you mostly liked the NY Times article. The guy was challenged initially but says he will come back and solo. We will see how part two of the NYT article will read. We are hoping for big results.

As you know I built a beautiful scooter tow rig. We used a brand new Honda scooter. Prior to building the scooter I went to several clinics and then built the tow rig and had Steve Wendt come here to work with our whole crew on the ups and downs of using a scooter.

We spent several days with Steve getting proficient and working with Steve was a real pleasure. After he left, we spent a lot of time and effort on our own working to be proficient with scooter towing; doing it the right way. We were and are successful with the scooter.

After all this I can honestly say that I do not think the scooter is a replacement for training hills as nice as ours. It can do the same job, just not to the same level. There are still issues with the scooter, especially in no wind, our main staple here. I still believe in using a scooter tow rig and used correctly it can be a huge benefit over just tandem instruction. Just ask Steve, he still likes a training hill over the scooter under certain circumstances, at least that is what he said to me.

This is what we discovered.

1) The scooter does not produce the same pivotal moment experience that solo foot launch off of the hill does.

2) The scooter will increase the number of days it takes to prepare someone for solo flight by at least one day compared to just the training hills and tandems. Often we do not have the luxury of this extra day and still being able to help the individual achieve their goals in their given timeline. So it's another step.

3) Without a loose grip you will not gently fly utilizing the scooter either.

4) Launching is different using the scooter so you will still have to address this with training.

5) When you have the training hills and the instructors that we have it is hard to beat the possibilities, results, and experience that we offer on the hills. Further I don't think we would do as well with the scooter or we would be using nothing but scooters. We have the land and it would sure save us a lot of dough to not have to lease our hills.

6) Students do not get the same thrill flying the scooter as they do the hills, so it is a bit different experience -- there is more equipment so it is not as free feeling according to some students.

I still like scooter tow. A great training hill is super tough to find and the scooter eliminates this obstacle. However, if you have a great hill, equipment and instructors and you fly the number of flights safely that we do (in the last ten weeks approximately 3,880 flights without injury), I think you will agree our system has it's merits and I would like to see how it could be improved. We are always striving to improve the experience, the safety and results that is why we invested so much in scooter tow.

Currently scooter is not better here and that's a fact. To date in 2009 we have safely soloed over seventy new mountain pilots. That's seventy new USHPA members. We are hoping to meet our five year average of at least one hundred new novice pilots for 2009.

Keep in mind. Scooter tow is not the only way, big condors flying slowly off of the training hills is still a huge rush for people. Big Fun, low risk, great results! Check it out.

Also as a side note our students ride up the hills on trailers pulled by UV's and four wheelers.

Thanks for your work with the Oz Report.