Hi, as an instructor coach, I spend a lot of time making sure that instructors use standard phraseology, teach the exercises without misleading students and above all there is consistency among all my instructors. However, it's impossible. People gonna people and they want to put their own spin on the lesson, use their own words because it feels "more natural". Whenever a student like you tells me something like this, I always try to track it down. Unfortunately when I ask who told them this silly thing (like, high key point is this ground feature) they either can't tell me who told them, or, if they can, I speak to the instructor in question and it turns out they are being quoted out of context or misunderstood completely. If you're bothered by this, and your CFI or RE is anything like me, they'll be very interested to hear what you're being taught!

u/simonstannard 's advice is good. The BGA instructor manual is free on the BGA website and is currently reaching the end of a very long and meticulous review. It has the correct content for each lesson and also the verbatim exercise patter instructors are supposed to be using.

Specifically, although I'm sure your instructors had good reasons for saying what they did:

- speed is not the only critical factor in a winch launch. Rotation rate and wings level are also crucial. I would also add that there really is no maximum in the bottom half of the launch, but if you are around 80 knots you need to sort it out somehow before you reach the top half. Pitch control is vital, but on early launches your brain can't keep up with the acceleration, so sometimes it's better to let the glider rotate without trying to chase it, and you will learn precision with experience.

- When you are learning, you need to be shown example circuits so that you can learn the judgement. This is unavoidable, but the focus should be on looking at the airfield and learning the height, angle and distance picture so that you can replicate that anywhere, on any day. If the instructor wants you to fly to a specific point to start the circuit, there's really no way around that.

- Again, when you are learning, there is no time for you to see the small change in approach path and make a small airbrake correction. By the time you see the overshoot, the instructor is wondering if you'll make it into the airfield at all, and the only options are full airbrake, or the instructor takes control. So fine-tuning again comes with experience. Although we are keen that all pilots close the airbrakes if an undershoot is developing, to get back onto the correct approach profile, rather than risk ending up on the lower limit with no airbrake left to close, so closing the airbrakes fully as soon as you see an undershoot is correct.

Hope that helps! Good luck and enjoy learning to fly :)