Cross country endorsement

Cross County Endorsement brief

The following is a brief for people wanting to do a cross country endorsement at Cambridge Gliding Club.

1. Review what you learned in your Bronze about airspace and maps.

2. Watch at least Parts 1 and Part 2 of the Navigation for glider and TMG pilots on this website.

3. Prepare a route - the standard GRL, RUS, RAM, GRL 100km.  You'll need to mark up your map appropriately. Make sure you know what all the symbols on the map mean!

4. Get hold of one of the electronic nav systems, make sure it's got current airspace and waypoint data and learn how to use it.  With most of them you can practice on the ground. (Choices include Oudies, or your phone with LK8000 or XCSoar on it).  We'll be using that for part of the flight.  If you don't have your own that you want to use, we'll use one of the club Oudies.

5. Find out how to download and review NOTAMs.  SPINE (google it), works well for gliding, but you could use SkyDemon (available on a couple of the club PCs) or Notam Info.

6. Watch carefully the material on the  Field landing training page.  This includes the BGA Field landing videos,  which are a very good briefing on what to look out for when picking fields.

7. Look at the following exercise briefs which are what we will be doing in the air and sim.

• Cross Country Exercise 1: GPS Navigation

• Cross Country Exercise 2: Pilotage

• Cross Country Exercise 3: Field landings

You can expect two flights in the Motorglider carrying out the navigation and field landing exercises, and a session in the Sim.  The instructor will be responsible for the flight, and will fly the takeoff and landing.  The instructor will look after the engine during the flight. 

We will need reasonable weather for the flying - cloudbase of better than 2500 feet, and winds that aren't too strong.  On the other hand, if it's a good soaring day we may reschedule.

Below is the current (May 2021) requirement for the BGA Cross Country Endorsement

BGA Cross Country Endorsement Requirements

The Cross-Country Endorsement can only be issued if the applicant has already qualified for a Bronze Endorsement or SPL/LAPL(S) and has the approval of the CFI. The minimum age to complete the Field Landing tests and Navigation tests is 16.

3 Requirements

a) Soaring Flights; The candidate must complete a soaring flight of at least one hour in duration after release and a separate soaring flight of at least two hours in duration after release. Each soaring flight must be under the supervision of a BGA instructor or Official Observer, who must complete and certify the report.

b) Field Selection Test; The candidate must demonstrate satisfactorily their ability to select or reject fields as to their suitability for landing. This exercise must be undertaken from the air but can be flown in a glider, motor glider or light aircraft.

c) Field Landings Test (normally completed as part of the Field Selection Test); The candidate must make a minimum of two successful approaches in a motor glider towards a field landing area selected by the candidate. The altimeter should be covered or the scale offset for this exercise. To qualify for the Endorsement, the approaches must be flown without any assistance or prompting from the instructor who must be satisfied that the candidate has demonstrated an adequate level of judgement and skill.

d) Navigation; The candidate must demonstrate their ability to navigate, to the satisfaction of a Full Rated Instructor. The candidate must plan a triangular task of at least 100 km, giving due consideration for any airspace requirements and to appropriate aspects of airmanship. During a BGA Bronze Cross Country Endorsement Navigation Skills Test the candidate must demonstrate the ability to read an aeronautical chart, to relate features shown on it with those features as they appear from the air and to orientate the map with respect to ground features.

This exercise can be flown in a glider, motor glider or light aircraft and only sufficient of the planned 100 km task need be flown to convince the instructor of the candidate’s ability to navigate

BGA Training Record

The  training record below is a good indication of what needs to be covered.

BGA Cross Country Application Form

Can be found here