Jana has some very thoughtful solutions, and her methods are definitely in the best interests of the long term survival of the club’s facilities. However, regardless of how well intentioned her proposals are, the cause of all this conversation is improper kiting. Kiting is a great resource for learning PG. I have taken PG lessons. I wish I could have stayed in a nice breeze learning when I learned to HG in 1985 in the valley of Lookout Mountain in August at 95 degrees and 100% humidity while I was carrying my Seagull 3 glider repeatedly up the training hill.

Covering 50% of the landing field with kiting gliders is not safe. Kiting at the landing cones with pilots on final is not safe. Cutting off two T2s while landing at the base of the training hill and then standing there kiting at the base of the training hill when those two gliders are seconds away from landing is not safe.

There needs to be common sense and safety mindedness for all this. Anyone with common sense would read the above paragraph and agree that none of those situations is safe, yet they all happened in the span of a couple weeks.

For beginners, it is all based on the instructor. If the instructor preaches and demands safe operations, the student will learn safe practices. If the instructor allows the student to ignore safe practices, then bad things happen. If it is OK to ignore the kiting rules, then it is probably ok to ignore the rules about beginner PG pilots launching at Crestline, etc. (that happened 6 weeks ago) For visiting pilots, David’s suggestion of large directive maps at the field will help.

Mostly, if all of our club member follow safe practices, then there will be many people to nudge non-safe visiting pilots in the direction of safe operations.

Relative to Jonathon’s post, I have experienced pilots at Crestline launch deciding they like being there. I do the safe thing. I go somewhere else. However, as Jonathon points out, the launch windows should be kept open as courtesy to other pilots. One’s safe launch should not be hindered by others in the immediate area.

Safety is foremost in all forms of aviation. Since our form of aviation is unregulated, we need to be even more safety conscious than say, my job as a Southwest 737 pilot. At work I have the company and FAA on my back to be safe. At Crestline I only have myself…