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Newsletter: November 2006 

Thoughts for pilots who want to improve - by Guy Harding

Going Cross Country

Do you really want to stay up?

This seems like a stupid statement I know. But it took me a while before I realised when I went for that first glide on the beginning of an XC, that I wasn’t really thinking of staying in the air for at least a few more hours, but that 90% of my thinking was devoted to gliding to a land able paddock. Not a lot was going into finding the next thermal. And I reckon that this is pretty common, especially in the early stages. It stems from the fear of the unknown and self preservation.

You can fool yourself for only so long that you wanted to stay up but you just made a bad decision. Eventually you DO get pissed off with yourself for going on that first glide from the hill and hitting the deck 10 minutes later. Eventually you’ll find that you really do want to stay in the air for at least a few more thermals and cover a bit more ground. The trick is to not spend an entire season or two landing after that one glide (like I mostly did), getting used to that notion, and to get your head into a space early in your flying carer where you haven’t got a subconscious fear of leaving the hill but are genuinely looking forward to the prospect of a good xc. This mental state is bloody important, because when you achieve it, you’ll all of a sudden discover that your xc flights increase in length dramatically.

So how do you alleviate the fear and develop that ‘want to fight to stay up’ attitude?

Ground work

Fear comes from the unknown as I mentioned earlier. What you’re trying to achieve before you go on you’re first xc flights is to eliminate as much of the unknown as possible. And you do that with a little planning. Things like: where am I going to land (a biggie),  how will I know the wind direction in this new paddock, will I make it to the next safe landing, I might be flying alone for the first time, who’s going to pick me up, will anyone know where I am, even the fear of failure or not wanting to inconvenience your driver. And what about if you do actually find a second thermal, then your really in the shit because you’ve got to venture even further into unknown territory.

First things first:

Fear of out/no landings 

This is for sure the biggest fear. What you need to do is drive the area you’re going to go xc over before you fly it. Especially to the first landing spot. You’ll generally know what direction an xc from a given site takes (ask a senior pilot), and if there are multiple, drive them all there wont be many and the first landing site will probably be under 5km away and certainly less than 10km. So there really isn’t that far to drive. Ideally you want a series of landings regularly spaced after a couple of km out, at say one every 1km or so. Generally this isn’t a problem and that you’ll find more landings than you need. The big surprise is that in most cases these landing spots are better than the standard bomb out paddock. Instead of that one paddock to choose from, imagine yourself at 4000ft with an 8:1 glide (9.5km) in front of you and the choice of paddocks you’ll have within that distance. And if there aren’t any good paddocks within that distance then you’ve probably not chosen a good hill for your first xc, and should look somewhere else.

When your driving have a good map. One that you can accurately get distance measurements from. This is so you can check the distance from the landing spots your seeing to your take off point. When you know the distances and you give yourself a conservative glide ratio you can work out the height you’ll need to get here from your take off. So when your thermalling up over take off, you’ll know that when you pass thru a certain height that you are within glide of your first landing. Preferably your first landing will only be a very short distance from take off so that after you’ve climbed in the thermal, you’ll know you can reach that landing with ease. Next to the fear of no landings is not being able to make it to one. So don’t make it touch and go! 

Judging wind when landing

Doing a downwind landing is not a great experience and it’s just another thing to make you nervous of leaving your known landing paddock.

There are the classic ways to read the wind such as; trees (poplars and willows are good) water (when it’s light the glassy patch is upwind), dust, smoke, streamers, clouds (look at cloud shadows, although it’s not necessarily the wind on the ground) etc. But what you want to try to avoid is looking for these signs when you’re only a couple of hundred feet off the ground with an imminent landing. Give your self plenty of time. If you’re at 3-500ft your probably not going to get much further, so if you’re unsure of the wind direction put in a couple of smooth 360s and note your drift. Most importantly keep judging the wind during your flight. It will give you the confidence to scratch lower knowing you don’t have to suddenly spend all your attention finding out where the winds coming from when you’re low.

Note the prevailing wind when you take off. If there is a reasonable breeze it’s not likely to be much different one glide away. Keep note of your drift when thermalling. If you’ve got a gps you can take note of you ground speed, so, knowing the trim speed, you should be able to roughly work out the wind speed and direction.

With all these signs you don’t have to know the exact direction of the wind. You will be able to be out by 45 degrees either side of your estimated wind direction and still land perfectly fine. You quite often do this at pikok, probably without realising it. If you know your 45 degrees out, as you begin to flare, shift your body weight slightly to the windward side of the A frame. If you come in with plenty of air speed (as you should) you will have time to make a gradual turn more into wind. Don’t try any fancy aerobatics in an effort to get yourself perfectly into wind. It’s just not necessary and you are increasing the danger factor in your landing.

If it is light and variable and you can’t judge the wind direction, look for a slightly uphill slope (not too steep though). You are transferring some of your forward speed into ‘up’ speed. If you do end up getting it wrong on a light and variable day or a thermal cracks off and sucks you toward it, then don’t be afraid to use your wheels (yes you should have them). If you’re really travelling you’re better to use your wheels than try for a hopeless flare upright. Stay in prone and ease the bar out for as long as you can before you touch down. Keep your legs inside the harness and push your feet hard against the boot to tighten the material so it will stay covering your legs. Better your harness gets the gravel rash than your legs.

When/how to leave

A lot of pilots leave the hill by simply continuing to circle in the thermal they’re in. Especially if the wind is drifting them in the direction they want to go. And lets face it 90% of xc flights are straight downwind. They may still be circling 10-20 minutes later even if the lift has really weakened. They may even be in a zero. When you’re looking at leaving the hill for the first time you shouldn’t be in a hurry. Take your time to sort out where you’re going, look at the terrain and possible landings, what you can discern from the sky. And what better way to give yourself time, than to remain in the thermal.

What direction, line and speed

Theoretically you could pick any direction. But as I’ve said before, 95% of the time it’s directly down wind. As a new pilot this is the one you should aim for as there is really no point in making it harder than necessary (unless of course you’re somewhere like the Kiamais). The obvious reason for this is that you cover more ground on a glide and are therefore more likely to run into a thermal. Thermals are generally spaced apart about 2-3 times the height of the thermal, given reasonably regular terrain (mountains and ranges change all this). So as you leave you’re first thermal, your primary aim is to pick a glide path that will take you over as many potential thermal generators as possible. We will go over these a little latter, but for now you’re looking to fly under as many good looking clouds as possible and as many ground based thermal generators as possible. This means that while your climbing in that first thermal you should be keeping an eye on clouds and ground sources down wind of you, so that its not all a rush of activity when you get to cloud base and decide it’s time to go. One thing you will learn about reading clouds; it’s a lot easier to check them out when you’re climbing underneath them, than when you are at cloud base itself. Then you can only see the closest ones and you can’t really see the bottom and particularly the sides (other clouds get in the way), so you’re not giving yourself much choice.  The sides are important because this is where you see if the outline is crisp and defined (think cauliflower heads) or whether the boarders are looking shaggy. A side on profile also lets you see how white the cloud is. Working clouds are more white. As they die they get a grey or dirty tinge to them (the water vapour molecules are changing size as the cloud dies and as the light refracts off them we see a different colour).

A rule of thumb that most xc pilots use when choosing their line is to pay more attention to clouds when in the top third of their height band, an equal amount between clouds and ground sources when in the middle third, and give priority to ground based sources in the bottom third. Of course a blue day or cloud street can change all that!

It may be that a good cloud or ground source is not directly down wind. If you choose to go to it, changing direction early is more efficient than a harder dog leg later in the glide. Finding thermals is not so much a science as a game of probabilities. The experienced pilots have developed a better understanding of what a good cloud or thermal source looks like, through trial and error, and so can pick a line that will see them flying over more likely triggers and under more likely clouds, and so increases the probability of flying into a thermal.  I for one used to fixate on one cloud or ground source and head straight to it. If that didn’t work, and it quite often didn’t, I was on the ground a few minutes later.

This brings us to another reasonably important point about flying conditions, particularly around here. Cloud base is not often higher than 5000ft. 4000-4500ft is probably more the norm. When this is all the height you’ve got to work with, you can’t afford too many wrong guesses. One and possibly two, unless you’re really lucky. When  I as flying in Oz and cloud base was 10,000ft +,  we could afford to fly faster, because we had a 20km + glide to find a thermal. The chances of finding one in that distance were quite high. Generally we didn’t fly as fast as we should have because it was hard to break out of the slow flying habit NZ had helped us develop. (Needless to say the Ozzie pilots went past us like we were standing still! But it did ensure we got a lot of air time by flying conservatively, if not flying a long way.) But back around here, at least to begin with, you need to fly conservatively and fly a line that takes you over as many lift sources as possible. After all is not like you’re in a rush, or at least you shouldn’t be!

This is one of the major reasons I think I did so poorly during the early to middle part of my xc flying. Thinking I had to get somewhere fast caused me to make 2 fundamental errors. The first was gliding too fast and therefore inefficiently, and the second was to pass up lift, or at least not initiate a search pattern when I encountered air that showed promise of a thermal. All because I had to get some where fast. Usually the ground! When I first started out I felt that if I stopped to search in a zero or broken lift, I would be wasting height and wouldn’t get as far as if I just kept on gliding. Now those searches pay off more often than not. And of course with the experience comes an understanding of what is worth a search pattern and what’s not. But that’s later.

When you’re starting out you really need an attitude that you want to stay in the air as long as possible. Your plan should be to at least fly the first hour or so of your flight conservatively and then to speed up if the conditions look good. That way you’ve at least had a good flight if you land shortly after increasing your speed. As I have said before, we get little enough air time in this part of the country without putting undue pressure on yourself to break the NZ or local distance record on your first flight!

Cross wind (along a ridge) The other likely option for an xc flight is cross wind along a ridge. Most of the things I have just mention pertain to an along the ridge xc. Here are a few differences though:

You wont glide as far (your heading cross wind not down wind).

You need to get a feel for how far the thermal tilts back on a given day. You may have a trigger point in mind that you’re flying to, but if the wind is blowing, its likely the thermal will be tilted, and you have to  allow for that. More so the higher above the trigger you are.

If the wind is blowing to any degree you need to be aware of the glide required to get to a landing paddock. You’ve been heading cross wind along the ridge and have a good idea of the glide you’re getting, but you also need to keep in mind that when you turn into wind your glide may be drastically reduced.

On stronger days be aware of venturis formed by valleys, gaps or low points on a ridge. The glide you had a few minutes ago could be drastically reduced when it comes to punch back out if you thermal/fly back into a valley. I have seen this happen.

On a windy day picking a thermal up at the top of the ridge may mean bailing out of the thermal early because there is too much thermal tilt. In this case you may have to venture forward of the ridge top to give you enough safety to take the thermal to the top. In this case either wait for a good looking cloud to come to you before heading forward or run along the ridge top looking for a good trigger out front, then head straight out to it.

Gliding away from the road

One of the major reasons I had so little successes with my early attempts at xc was my fear of venturing away from the road an hence an easy retrieve. I would quite often see good clouds that I knew I should head for, but then I would always think; If I don’t get up under that cloud I’m probably going to end up landing away from the road, and I’ll end up with a big walk out. Needless to say this philosophy prematurely ended a lot of  flights.

You need to think about in advance how you are going to tackle this situation, because a cloud line or even a single good cloud is rarely straight down the road.

I have personally come to a compromise. Unless I stuff it up big time I will land within ½ to 1km of where a vehicle can be driven. This doesn’t necessarily mean a main road. It could be the drive of a farmers house or anything really that looks like a track from the air. So I could end up a few km from the main road.

How aggressive or conservative I am about making the decision to glide away from the road is largely determined by the quality of the day and the cloud/trigger I’m heading to in particular. If I think the probabilities are good to get up and it doesn’t look like it will be the last thermal of the day ten I’ll give it a go.

What you will need to do is keep an eye on the ground while gliding to see any retrieval paths.

Until you are prepared to inconvenience your driver, chances are your flights will be relatively short. We normally only get one or two shots at finding the next lift so if you limit yourself to one portion of sky (ie: over the road) your chances of finding lift are greatly reduced.

You might say for example, that you’ll go for that cloud/trigger and if you get no lift you’ll fly back toward the road. Even though you know you will still be ½ a km away from it.  Rather than not go for it so you can land right by the road.

What you need to do is get your head into a space where landing away from the road doesn’t impact on the decisions you make in the air (within your set limits).The increased sky you have to work within will give you a far greater probability of finding that next thermal. And as I’ve said before, this is really a game of probabilities, and making decisions that increase them.

Building a picture of the day

It is important to come to grips with how the day is working as soon as possible. If you know certain things are happening, good or bad, you can use the information to make more accurate decisions. It’s like a game whose rules change every time you play, and the sooner you become aware of them the better you can play.

Some of the changes are things like: cloud base height, expected thermal strength, how smooth / rough they are, sharp or mellow edges, distance between thermals (especially if it’s a blue day and you’re on flatish terrain), how long the thermals last, what the cloud associated with a good thermal looks like, does the lift tapper off close to cloud base or is cloud suck likely, does the wind change with height, is there streeting, is a sea breeze likely, is it only working in the hills or are the flats working too, etc etc.

There are many more, but the important thing is to make sense of the day ASAP!

To stop for lift or not to stop; and searching

As I have mentioned above, experience teaches us when it’s worth stopping to search a promising chunk of air and when its not. What I’ll try and do here is give you the benefit of what experience I have and add some info from of the books I’ve read.

This bit is a little esoteric, so skip it if it bores you.

The most reliable tool to tell you whether to stop and search when you’ve registered a few beeps on the vario is your subconscious memory. At least when you have one to draw from. Every time you fly you add to it. The inputs you felt, what happened to the glider as a result of them and whether they had a positive or a negative result. Every time it happens it goes in the ‘potential lift’ folder of your subconscious memory.

After a while your subconscious starts to recognise similarities in the texture of the air over multiple experiences and begins to tell you whether is worth stopping for a look.

To begin with there’s not much info to draw from so it may start out not all that reliable. But as it’s added to, it becomes more and more reliable. It begins to recognises the air you’re flying through, and gives you a probability (a gut feeling) of whether to make a search or not. The short of this paragraph is that the more flying you do the better you will get at whether to search or carry on gliding.  I am very envious of the pilots who have many hundreds of hours under their belt. They have so much subconscious memory to draw from, and so have a greater probability of getting the ‘to search?’ question right. (Of corse they still have to decide to recognise what their subconscious is telling them and use it). But the moral is; get out there, go flying and start building on your experiences!!

The other side to this coin is to think of things is a more logical way. In practise we probably use both. Each pilot will use intuition (the subconscious) and up front logic in different proportions.

So here’s the logic of it. You’ve been on a glide for a while, your half way to the deck and something that resembles lift would be really nice. Here are a few basic scenarios of what can happen on glide.

You start flying into greater sink but it very soon gets better and keeps building until you fly smack into the middle (or side) of a wall of rapidly rising air that has you stuffing the bar to stop from flaring your glider at 3000ft. If I have to tell you what to do here you may as well sell your glider now!

In the midst of a long glide and a general sink rate of 2-300fpm the vario suddenly beeps at you a few times, then falls silent again going back to the previous 2-300fpm down. In this situation I will normally keep on gliding. What I have come to associate with this (as the result of generally fruitless searches in such a situation) is an isolated and very small pocket of lift that will probably be gone by the time you circle round to fly over it again, and will probably result in a net loss of altitude.

What we are looking for, if not a solid core is a general area of turbulence in otherwise general sink. Hopefully (and it’s never a certainty), it will mean one of two things. The first; that there is lift in the general area and the second that you are above a rising core of lift and have to actually wait for it to reach you. More on the second later. In the first instance the turbulence may begin with the vario not even beeping. This may mean we are further from the core of lift or that it is only weak lift. We will only find out if we search. If you are high you might forego the search and glide on for something more solid. It will depend on the day and what the thermals have been like up to that point.

You’re more likely though to find lift if you get positive up surges (the vario beeps at you) in amongst the general turbulence.

In Oz I began to recognise an area of turbulence sometimes lasting 10 seconds while gliding before I would hit the core of the thermal. In Oz because the thermals were quite strong (1000fpm +) the turbulence around them could fool you into thinking that this was the actual thermal or core, albeit a ratty one. You could thermal up in this ratty thermal and remain ignorant of the beautifully smooth and powerful core not far away. What you had to do was fly straight through the turbulence and into the core proper.

If you don’t get a wing lifted in either direction I will often begin by gliding straight through the turbulence until I either hit the core (hopefully) or fly out of it. In which case, if it seems promising, I will go back and initiate a search pattern. Flying through the turbulence slowly gives me time and enables me to feel the textures of the air.

If a wing gets lifted at any stage through the turbulence, I know which way to turn to begin the search. I may just turn the glider 45-90 degrees and continue gliding on the assumption that this new course is more likely to find the core. Or if the wing gets lifted strongly and I feel this may be the core I will of course keep tightening up.

This brings me to quite an important point when first finding thermals; when you first find that shot of lift that you decide is worth turning in; bank the glider in aggressively at a reasonably steep angle. In the first turn or 2 you are not necessarily trying to max your climb but find the centre of the core. When you have the core you can flatten the bank to optimum and slow down (carrying extra speed initially limits getting chucked out of a thermal). By beginning aggressively you are less likely to lose the core. This is especially true if the day’s thermals have been strong and tight (I’ve found this is more common when under high pressure systems).

One technique for getting into the core when you have one wing lifting and your weight shift is not really doing the trick (the wing is sticking), is to push out slightly while weight shifting, then pulling back in once the wing has ‘unstuck’. How much you can do this depends on how close to stall you are and how confident you are that you’re not going to fall out the side of the thermal. If you do so, you may deeply stall the wing and loose a lot of height in the process. You are also more prone to a tumble if you get some nasty air at this moment, so use it with caution, especially when low!

I have read an interview with Rohan Holtcamp who says he is able to detect big thermals up to1-2km away. The way he does this is to be very aware of his yaw/roll and pitch motions. You need to have a light grip on the glider, so it must be tuned to fly perfectly straight (several world class pilots emphasis this point in detecting thermals). If you are constantly fighting a turn you will never feel these subtle movements. Also the slower you are going the more you can feel these movements. A thermal does not just effect the air directly above or beside it but quite a way from it, the bigger the thermal the further away its effects can be felt. The way Rohan thinks of it is as imagining a small model glider on a table cloth on a table. Now if you were to hold the centre of the table cloth and lift it from that point (like a thermal pushing through the air) the glider would yaw and roll slightly away from the lifting table cloth (thermal) while drifting sideways slightly, toward the centre. In reality, if you feel this, you are in a portion of air that isn’t part of the thermal, but in nearby air that is being entrained into the thermal. It is obviously easier to detect the sideways drift when closer to the ground, but the good pilots say they can sense the motion even higher up. This is a point I’ll have to work on!

Next time you are at a thermal site but not planning to go anywhere, try leaving the thermal early, fly away from it for a short time then turn around and aim to miss the thermal by 20, 50, 100…. metres to see if you can detect this entraining flow and in general to feel what the air is like around a thermal. You may just add a very important sensation to your subconscious memory. Instead of having to fly straight into a thermal, you may be now able to detect them from off to the side.

A question relating to searching for the core that I have become more aware of, is whether to be satisfied with what you’re in or whether to initiate a big search pattern. (A big search pattern is going further a field than centering on your current core).

On any given day thermals tend to exhibit similar characteristics to one another. Provided you remain in the same air mass (don’t pass through a front) and remain over similar terrain (don’t go from mountains out to the flats). This is because they are pushing up through the same lapse rate (the rate at which air cools with altitude) with similar ground based heating potential.  So as you encounter more thermals on a given day you want to form a picture of what to expect.  If you have been getting 500fpm climbs in reasonably smooth cores for example, and you come across a weaker climb in a broken core, you should be more willing to search around the area for a better core. This is all part of ‘building the picture’ that I’ve mentioned earlier.

Low saves

One of the more tense situations pilots can find themselves in, is coming across broken lift when low, say under 1000ft. The lower you are the more tense the situation! The big decision to make is whether to search or glide on.

Obviously there are endless situations to find yourself in, but here are a few generalizations to think about:

If you’re down really low, say 500ft, there is obviously not much further to glide. So if you come across broken lift at this point, unless there other very likely thermal triggers within the short glide radius you have, you are probably best to search the broken lift. You are very unlikely to come across a solid core at such a low altitude, so be prepared to constantly shift your circles to stay in the best lift. Quite often you may get a couple of circles with a net gain which then disappears forcing you to search again. Generally start your search in the direction of the strongest portion of lift that you were circling in. Sometimes you have just got to flatten your circle right out and cover some ground.

Something I tend to do in this situation is fly a little faster because things are tense, and I have to keep reminding myself to slow down. By loosening my grip a little on the base bar to help me slow up (you can feel the pitch pressures of the glider better) it actually helps me to relax at the same time.

While trying desperately to find a decent core you should be building a mental map of what the particular thermal is like. Where the bubbles are, how long each bubble lasts, where the general hot spots are. And try to keep in mind where you are in relation to them as you move about. Even if you are not climbing for some time, you are still getting a better picture, enhancing your chance of finding the lift and finally climbing. So don’t give up!

Most people have a point at which they accept that they are too low to get back up again, even in the broken lift situation. They focus on the landing paddock. As soon as you divert your attention to the landing paddock, the game is over. I think that early xc pilots ‘give up’ at a lot higher altitude than they have to. (I know I certainly used to, and I think it ended some flight prematurely). I’m not talking about compromising safety here, but of organising yourself to allow the maximum amount of altitude to search. Each person will have their own limits, the more experienced you get the lower you can go before setting up an approach. The biggie is to have a paddock and an approach sorted out thoroughly so you can then concentrate totally on the search. You need to do this ideally while gliding. Believe me, when you are very low you will need absolute concentration and a strong will to get up. I think more often than not, the difference between one person getting up and the other landing, when in the same piece of air, is their determination to continue the flight and think ‘UP’, rather than having a 50/50 attitude. Don’t underestimate it! It really is no exaggeration to say that when very low you have to fight to stay up.

If you have climbed 100ft or even 50ft, that is a reason to be positive, and to shift your mental attitude to one of backing yourself to climb out.

If there is one thing I have learned from the interviews I’ve read of good pilots, it’s that the mental side plays a far larger role in flying than the mechanics of it. And attitude plays a large role in the mental side.

Gliding techniques

According to the guns, they concentrate while gliding far more than they do thermalling.

Sound a bit weird to you? In truth they have done so much thermalling that they are all pretty damn good at it, so they find it hard to out thermal one another, especially in a gaggle. Where they can get a jump or catch up is by choosing a glide line that is better than their competitors. Basically if you are the sort of person who just pulls the string, tucks the bar and heads straight for the next thermal/trigger, then you will probably be gliding inefficiently. Here are a couple of reasons why:

1)When the VG is on full the glider is super stiff. You will fly through lift and sink but also more importantly, at times one wing will fly through more lift/sink than the other, resulting in a slight turn. At this stage you need to have enough control over the glider to be able to steer it in the direction of the lifting wing and at the very least not get turned into the greater sink. Even Gerolf Henrichs says he doesn’t always glide with full VG. More like ¾, so he can have control over his glider. Over the course of an inter thermal glide it is generally more beneficial to be able to make use of the variations in the air than to try and straight line the glide and find yourself getting knocked into the sinkier air.

2)Another skill I am learning from reading interviews with tops pilots is to feel the air for the best (most lifty) lines. Quite often there are lines of lift and sink that set up parallel to the wind (with wave and wind that runs perpendicular to a range, the lines will set up perpendicular.)  The lift may not actually be lift but just less sink. Lets’ say you spend 5 minutes gliding on a line that provides you with 50fpm less sink than another line, then at the end of that 5 minutes you will be 250ft higher. Multiply that by 3 (750ft), 5(1250ft), 10(2500ft) etc inter thermal glides and you start getting some serious height gains. But as with point 1. you need to be sensitive to the air and be able to control your glider to take advantage of these lines of less sink.

3)Another obvious skill is to glide at the right speed for the current sink. You need to become familiar with ‘speed to fly’ (S2F) and McCreedy concepts.

S2F is basically flying at a speed that will see you covering the most ground on a glide. Each glider / pilot combination will have different speeds to fly optimally for the same air. Some clear examples: If you are flying at 25mpg into a 25mph head wind, you’re going nowhere. So you have to fly a lot faster to cover the most ground. Also if you are flying through strong sink you need to fly faster than best glide to a) spend less time in such strong sink, and b) your glider polar will dictate that you get a better overall glide at higher speeds in strong sink.

McCreedy adds to this by including the expected climb you will get in your next thermal. Basically, if the next expected thermal is weak, it pays to glide towards it at closer to best glide speed as its better to arrive at the thermal higher and spend less time climbing, even though it will take you longer to glide there. If the next thermal is expected to be strong you will be more efficient to fly faster and get there sooner, even though you will be lower. This is because the strong climb will have you higher at the same point in time than the guy who takes longer to get to the thermal, but gets there higher than the point you arrived at the thermal.

Most people glide too fast and some to slow for the current sink. Meaning that they are just not gliding efficiently. They may get to point B faster than the pilot gliding at an optimal speed, but they will be lower and have to spend time thermalling back up to the other pilot, who has by now reached the thermal and is climbing. This point is exaggerated the weaker the thermal.  I’m not telling you to slow up necessarily, but to get to know the right speed to fly.

One thing about McCready speeds to fly: Flying slightly too slowly hurts you far less than flying slightly too fast.

Basically, think of altitude as hard won money in the bank. Don’t give it away easily!

Changing your mind / making decisions

Generally speaking, once you have made a decision you should stick to it. Changing your mind mid glide to try for another thermal can eliminate the possibility of getting either. The same applies to landing paddocks. If you’re dithering between 2 or more and don’t commit to one, chances are you will be leaving it too late to set up a proper approach. Quite often you know the paddock you should be landing in but it might be a little further from the road and the paddock next to the road is definitely not as good but you should be able to land there ok. Sound familiar? Pick the good one if you have any doubts!

There are times though when I think you should introduce some flexibility into your decision making progress. I have found than when on an xc most pilots focus is on flying as far away from take off as possible. Even if that means going on a glide that you know will be your last. If you have only been flying for an hour or so (so you have not actually flown that far) under clouds and you suddenly come to a blue hole as far as the eye can see, have a think to yourself weather you want to go on that last glide, or weather it might be better to try for an out and return/triangle flight, or maybe just detour around the blue hole. Chances are you will get a lot more air time than you would going on that final glide. And having a go at an into, or cross wind leg is something we don’t practice much at all but should be added to our skill base.

Even if that blue hole is not never ending, just that it’s in the direction your going. Consider making a 45-90 degree turn to go around it. Follow the clouds and give yourself the best chance possible to stay in the air.

One thing about making decisions: Especially in my early days, and indeed even now, I have made decisions in the air that have put me on the ground.  I have been amazed at myself at why I made that choice. I have had occasions standing on the ground after a flight saying to myself: ‘why the hell did you choose to do that’! The decision was obviously the wrong one and I think while I was in the air I had known that the decision was not the best one. So why did I make it? (By the way I don’t think I’m the only one to do this. For example  I’ve seen pilots who have been flying under clouds venture out into a blue hole when there were clouds off the side).

I think part of the reason is a single track focus: I’m going from A to B and that’s that. Or: I’m heading down wind and a dog leg will slow me down or reduce my distance. But I think the main reason is not being able to relax in the air. This was true of me in my early days.  I found that being tense in the air robbed me of some mental computing power. Juggling several possible decisions made me more tense and all I wanted to do was make one and get on with it. Generally is was the most simplistic and safest. Hence going for a glide to a nice big paddock in the valley under a blue hole. Not staying on the ridge line where the cus are, and only when getting low, venturing out to the valley. If you’ve had this, recognise it for what it is and try to make up front logical decisions in the air. The best way to get over it though is to fly regularly. The more frequently I fly the more relaxed I am I the air. So if you’re thinking that you’ll never get the hang of this xc thing and you’re not getting that much air time, don’t beat yourself up. Understand that almost all but the few exceptional pilots would  be in the same situation if they were getting that airtime.

Getting up and away

When thermalling close to the hill, fly at min sink when circling away from the hill and increase speed for control when on the ‘toward the hill’ part of the circle.

Probably the biggest mistake I kept making (and still do sometimes) is to fly back through sink. If you’re on a ridge (especially a low on like Kourarau) you can’t really afford to fly back through sink too many times, or you’ll be on the deck before you know it. It’s usually better to keep going or fly back via a different track. The stronger the sink you’ve just flown through the more you have to stick to this rule, especially if you haven’t got much height to work with.

Newsletter: November 2006