ANAC Glider Pilot common mistakes
ANAC Glider Pilot · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Treating the privileges and limitations of the glider pilot licence as if they matched powered-aircraft licences, for example assuming a rating is required for every launch type or that currency rules are interchangeable.
Candidates study from general aviation material or from memory of other licences instead of the specific glider regulation text, so they misapply familiar rules to glider operations.
What to do instead
Build a one-page summary of the glider-specific privileges, ratings, medical requirements and recency rules directly from the regulation, and test yourself by writing the rule out from memory before checking it.
Confusing airspace classes and their requirements, such as the visibility and cloud-clearance minima for VFR in each class, or which classes require a clearance.
The airspace table is memorised as a block of numbers without a mental model of controlled versus uncontrolled airspace, so entries get swapped under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Redraw the airspace table from memory weekly, and for each class state aloud who needs a clearance and whether VFR is permitted, linking every number to that logic.
Answering airframe and system questions by intuition rather than by tracing the actual control circuit, for example misidentifying what happens when the airbrakes are extended or how the tow release and trim interact.
Candidates learn systems from diagrams only and never walk the aircraft, so they cannot reason about failure cases or secondary effects.
What to do instead
Do a supervised walk-around and physically trace each control run from cockpit to surface, then write a short cause-and-effect chain for each system failure scenario.
Mixing up instrument indications and their failure modes, such as the behaviour of the altimeter when static pressure is blocked, or the difference between indicated, calibrated and true airspeed.
Instrument questions are studied as isolated facts without the underlying pressure relationships, so any variation in wording derails the answer.
What to do instead
For each instrument, sketch the pressure source, the sensing element and the display, then derive what happens if the source is blocked or leaking instead of memorising the outcome.
Calculating performance with the wrong inputs, for example using still-air figures in a headwind or tailwind, ignoring density altitude, or forgetting to add margin for a downslope or wet grass.
Candidates plug numbers into a formula without first deciding which variables the scenario changes, and they skip the qualitative adjustment step.
What to do instead
Before calculating, list every stated condition and mark which ones change the result; then adjust the base figure step by step and state the direction of each adjustment out loud.
Getting loading and centre-of-gravity questions wrong by using the wrong datum, mixing units, or failing to check that the result lies within the forward and aft limits rather than only computing a number.
The arithmetic is done mechanically and the candidate stops at the calculated value without comparing it to the envelope.
What to do instead
Always finish with an explicit statement that the result is within or outside limits, and practise a full worked loading with a diagram of the envelope and the plotted point.
Misjudging human factors scenarios by choosing the option that sounds most safety-conscious rather than the one that describes the actual physiological or psychological mechanism, such as hypoxia, hyperventilation or spatial disorientation.
Candidates answer from general attitude rather than from the symptom pattern, and the three hypoxia-like conditions share early signs.
What to do instead
Learn a distinguishing table for each condition covering onset, symptoms, and the correct response, and practise classifying short symptom vignettes into the right condition.
Applying meteorological rules of thumb without checking the underlying stability and moisture, for example predicting cumulus when the air is stable, or misreading a tephigram or forecast trend.
Rules of thumb are memorised as slogans, so the candidate never links cloud type to lapse rate and humidity.
What to do instead
For every weather question, first state the stability and the moisture, then derive the expected cloud and hazard, and practise reading a simple upper-air diagram from first principles.
Making navigation errors from unit and time confusion, such as mixing nautical and statute miles, or computing track and heading without applying variation and deviation in the correct order.
The correction sequence is applied from memory in the wrong order, and unit conversions are done casually under time pressure.
What to do instead
Write the conversion chain true to magnetic to compass as a fixed sequence and apply it in the same order every time, and label every number with its unit before calculating.
Answering operational procedure questions with the ideal outcome rather than the published sequence, for example launching without confirming the cable weak link and signals, or handling a rope break at the wrong height with the wrong action.
Procedures are learned as descriptions rather than as ordered checklists, so steps are omitted or reordered when the question presents an abnormal case.
What to do instead
Rehearse each abnormal procedure as a numbered checklist with the decision height or trigger stated, and practise recalling the sequence in order without notes before checking.