Mentorship

Overview

Weehooooo I just got my P2! Uh… now what? Does that feel familiar to you? Many pilots feel ‘lost’ after obtaining their P2 rating and aren’t aware of or cannot access resources to further develop their skills and expertise.

The club aims to help WCSC members progress through their flying career by facilitating introductions and supporting relationships between experienced and novice pilots.

The vision is to keep pilots excited about flying after their P2/H2 rating, introduce them to new sites, new challenges and friends, thereby safely growing our local free-flight community.

This program’s mission is to facilitate and accelerate novice pilot’s skill acquisition, knowledge and confidence to support a natural transition to becoming an experienced pilot.

The Benefits

The benefits of mentoring relationships are many and mutual, extending well beyond basic skills development.

For example, mentors may be looking to sponsor a novice pilot with XC ambitions who will join or support future XC excursions, provide retrieves, or simply a flight monitoring/safety function. Mentors also refine their own expertise by reviewing concepts and identify areas to improve upon through discussion.

Certainly, novice pilots will benefit from gaining insight, experience, and increased safety from the knowledge passed down by their mentors. 

As individual pilots, we all thrive with the support of an active and engaged community.

This is an "Unofficial" Program of the West Coast Soaring Club

This is an “unofficial” mentorship program as The WCSC takes a minimal role beyond the initial introduction, assumes no liability, and encourages participants to manage their own expectations, effort, and progression. Mentorship program successes most often result from informal interaction in friendly environments. Beyond the policies below, all that’s required is a desire to fly, learn, share expertise and experiences, and a willingness to help others! Guidance for this program is loosely based on USHPA and BHPA mentorship programs.

How it works

The mentor program is facilitated by The WCSC who will match novice with experienced pilots. Once this introduction is made, it is up to the two parties to establish and maintain a relationship.

Novice pilots are encouraged to self-assess to identify skills and flying goals for discussion prior to meeting their mentor. The WCSC can provide a guideline for initial conversational topics.

 

How to Participate:

  1. Novice pilots and Mentorssend an email to events@westcoastsoaringclub.com. Provide an outline of your flying experience including number of flights, hours, flying sites, current rating, flying goals, etc. Novice pilots include any rating or experience level (ie: pilots who are not current, only a few recent flights, or are not confident).
  2. The WCSC will match Mentors with Novice Pilots based on the information given in their emails. We’ll contact each party to suggest the match, and we’ll check with both to ensure you’re comfortable with eachother. Then we’ll make the introduction (by email).
  3. Mentors/Novices take it from there! Is up to the two parties to establish and maintain a relationship. Skill advancement comes through honing judgement. To achieve this, discussions are encouraged around: aspects of different flying sites, local meteorology, current weather conditions, flight planning, obstacles, landing zones, etc. Communication is encouraged on social media, phone, or even better yet your local flying site
  4. Feedback for the program. Let us know how it goes! If there are ways to improve, we’re all ears. If it did/didn’t work for you, we’d like to know.
Woodside launch

Policies

  • All participants voluntarily contribute and no monetary compensation should be expected.
  • Mentors are not instructors (unless HPAC rated) and do not provide instruction. If a Mentor determines that a Mentee’s skills are deficient, the Mentor may recommend that the pilot obtain further instruction from an HPAC certified instructor.
  • Mentors and Novice pilots must have current HPAC AND WCSC membership
  • Mentors must have an intermediate (P3/H3) or higher rating and be familiar with local sites
  • Novice pilots must be minimum P2 rated
  • Decision making is the ultimate responsibility of individual pilots.
  • No liability is assumed nor implied by participating in a Mentorship Program.

Recognition

Nominations for Mentor of the year and Novice of the year are encouraged for recognition of one’s contributions and efforts to the local pilot community annually.

Contact Us

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Our mission is to create safe places for free flight pilots to launch and land. To encourage education, training and community support to nurture novice pilots into master pilots. To develop sustainable environmental improvements in the communities where we live, work and play. We believe passionately in travel, good food, great friends, long talks, broadened horizons and the spirit of adventure.