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Comment by beefield | Hacker News Reader

I have flown gliders when I was younger and occasionally thought about PPL. And I have thought sims as well. Given the glider backcround, am I going to learn bad things on a sim?

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Glider is widely recommended as an entry to powered flight. You'll be better prepared and will have better stick and rudder skills than most student pilots.

it also wont be such a shock the first time you lose engine thrust.

I genuinely had no idea that a license wasn't required to fly a glider (or "ultralight" based on my reading). I'd imagine there is very high overlap anyway -- most glider pilots being pilots, etc.

Weirdly often not! They’re quite different recreational activities.

Flying powered is a “go to the airfield and takeoff” whereas gliding is more of an all-day team sport at most clubs as there’s a lot of ground handling required for towing, winches etc.

But a pilot's license is generally required to fly gliders.

Stuff like winch-launched paragliders excluded.

At least in europe there is a separate licence for glider flight.

Same in US, they are separate.

Same in the US. "Airplane single-engine land" and "glider" are two possible private pilot ratings (others include rotorcraft, balloon, multi-engine, seaplane, etc).

Yes, a private pilot's license (PPL glider) is required to fly gliders. OP probably meant that they were considering adding a rating for powered airplanes (PPL ASEL - airplane, single-engine, land).

Alternatively perhaps they mean that they took some lessons in a glider as a student pilot and considered going further and getting the license.

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