MAKE ME BEG (13)

While stationed in Washington, DC, I bought a small soaring operation that opened only on weekends. With each student instructional flight I became more and more convinced that two skill areas were more difficult for them to master than any others. The first was "turning" and the second was "slipping." It is, of course, obvious to anyone that a pilot must be able to turn his aircraft. Not so obvious, but logical, is the necessity to vary the rate of descent when in the landing pattern. You see, in a glider you have no engine to which you can add power in order to reduce a rate of descent. that absence of power dictates that a pilot's safety margin lies in maintaining a little bit of extra altitude, and he must be capable of shedding that altitude quickly as he approaches the landing spot: ideally with a sideslip.
Turning is much more difficult in a glider than in a light plane, because the glider's wings are extremely long in relation to the fuselage. when the pilot moves the control stick to the side in order to cause a bank (roll,) one of the control surfaces (ailerons) is moved down into the air stream. It then produces more lift, and the wing is lifted, there by causing the aircraft to roll.

Unfortunately, nature always exacts a toll in return for producing the extra lift - and that toll is called drag. 
Remember the longer wings? Well, the drag causes that long (lots of leverage) upgoing wing to be pulled back toward the tail of the aircraft, and the nose moves in the opposite direction from the intended turn. Even worse, because the glider is now going sideways through the air, drag increases drastically, and it immediately begins to drop out of the sky. This condition is know as a "sideslip" usually just called a "slip."

So, the typical student tries to turn, but slips instead. Then, later, as he enters the landing pattern, he tries to slip to lose altitude but turns instead. After giving this problem a lot of thought, I decided that I would write a clear explanation and give it to my students for home study. I labored long and hard to reduce the problem to the most simple and succinct terms possible. the article was shorter than two pages and was titled: "Turnin' and Slippin'."

Proud of my efforts, I gave it to three of my students, none of whom had taken more than five flights in gliders. Each of them had the same reaction. They looked at it, handed it back to me, and explained that they did not agree. Yes, it was true! Although not one of them had even the slightest knowledge of the subject, all were confident that they knew more than me.

After thinking it over, I decided to change my approach. On the next occasion that a student was flying the glider like it was a drunken butterfly, I would casually state something to the effect that: "I've got a paper in my car that gets to the bottom of this problem.
If you're interested, ask me about it when we get back on the ground." Later, during the flight debriefing, the student would demand that I give him/her the paper.  After they had studied the paper, we would devote a flight to practicing the method detailed in the paper - with great success.

The answer, you see, is that the paper became valuable to them only when: A) they recognized that they lacked information that was valuable to them, and B) they had to put forth an effort to get it. Are people predictable or what?