Announce and track hang gliding events
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#261835
For those of you who have yet to hear of this, SG has just created a new forum for fun events.
Specifically HangGliding.Org Fun Fly-In Events.
- lets leave the heavy duty stuff to the Oz Report's Comp Forum. OK?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I will lead off with articles on Coaching Pilots re: Cross Country Safety.

A Thread where experts et all can post their Coaching programs for all to study ahead of time.

I plan on bringing mine to the Guatamala Maya Event in early March... http://www.facebook.com/HgGuatemalaTours?sk=info

So I will personally use this to tune up my "Coaching Manual" much of which can be found at:
Cross Country Safety by Andrew Barber Starkey.
My talk goes on about understanding orographic waves, understanding where they are and the positive and negative effect they have on thermal generation in lifting and sinking air portions of the wave, final glide calculations...

It ends with my favorite quotation from my first coach: John Huddart.
"If it doesn't feel right just break down and there will always be another day."

The TTT Event is a good place to go to for start up ideas: http://www.tennesseetreetoppers.org/tc.asp
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

From: http://www.mountainviewconsulting.com/b ... hing-tips/

Mike Barber is a man with the record for the longest unpowered cross country flight. He flew over 400 miles in a hang glider.
This kind of feat requires a wisdom that transcends the technical aspects of a sport.
The sports focus was look for lift, decide whether to stay or go and learn to stay centered inside the lift.

1) In hang gliding, “you’re either in lift (warm air going up) or sink (cold air going down).”
When it comes to finding lift, Mike explains, “90% of the sky is sink and is 10% is lift,” a disappointing reality.
He goes on to say, “and of that 10%, half of it will not help you soar.”

2) Stay centered in the lift.
Once you decide to pursue an opportunity, are you successful in staying centered or do you extend yourself to the point where you become unbalanced and fall out?
Do you use a sports visualization?

3) Do you stay or go?
Most pilots learning to fly long distances are reluctant to give up lift once they find it.
This is because people are motivated more by the threat of losing something than by the prospect of gaining something.
The reality is that a thermal is only building for 7-8 minutes, chances are, you didn’t lose it, it simply ran its course.

4) Beware of Attachments:
When pilots become attached to the notion that lift still exists in a given spot.
They spend valuable time searching. Instead, they should be moving on to find new lift.

See also: http://www.mountainviewconsulting.com/sports-coaching/
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#264429
Cross-Country Flying 101 - edited with permission for Hang Gliding

By and with permission to reprint from Will Gadd, <=== The Paragliding Specific version is posted here from http://www.gravsports.com and his http://willgadd.com/
- with input from many top pilots who patiently and repeatedly answered the question, "What's important for successful XC flying?"

The first step toward successful cross-country flying is simply leaving the security of the local hill and venturing out into the wide world.
It doesn't matter if a an XC flight ends one or 100 miles from the start point, but that it was attempted.
For every flight that ends in a new LZ requires the same basic set of skills:
An appreciation of local conditions, constant analysis of immediate air conditions in flight and, above all else, a safe place to land at the end of a flight.

Flight Planning

The planning of an XC flight is often as or more important than the actual flight.
For example, task committees at competitions set tasks every morning armed with the best information they can gather on wind speeds,
possible cloud development, barometric pressure, satellite photos and every other scrap of information they can muster.
As your own task committee, get as much information as possible before setting your task.
There are also days that simply aren't good for going XC; rather than forcing a day to meet your goal, set your goal around the day.
Assuming the day looks reasonable for XC flying (no thunderstorms forecast for noon or other large-scale problems),
a good map of potential routes is essential, preferably one with airspace restrictions, mountain ranges, major roads, powerlines, railroads and other feature visible from the air.
Fred Wilson wrote:Plan your routes ahead of time at home using XC Planner.
- just insert your nearest city, select the number of turn points you plan on using, then hit "Reset." Off you go. Have fun with this great planning tool!
Then generate kmz files to insert into your GPS using WayPoint Planner. Both thanks to Tom Payne. :thumbsup:
Information from any local source about XC flying always has to be examined with an eye toward who is giving it,
but I like to pump local HG and PG pilots about where they have been and what happened.
For example, they may know that a local canyon turns into a death venturi about noon every day, as well as good thermals or areas where the powerlines make landing all but impossible.
After establishing the general conditions for the day and area, the next step is to set some kind of goal and state it: "I'm going to fly from Aspen to Leadville."
Even if you don't make your goal, you'll still learn something about XC flying, while you're guaranteed not to learn anything if you're boating around with 20 other pilots at the regular hill.
XC flying in a group has advantages, but it's often difficult to get anyone to go with you.
Break the herd mentality and go anyhow, but try to tell someone generally where you're going in case you don't show up later.
In many states, a fishing license covers rescue costs for the purchaser; it's a small investment that can go a long way.

Because (EDITED) most of us hang glider pilots tend to go upwind rather poorly, so upwind flying should be kept to a minimum.
Understanding local wind conditions such as the difference between morning, afternoon and evening valley flows versus predominate winds aloft can be critical.
Using Aspen as an example, the wind usually flows down the valleys in the mornings and evenings and up the valleys in the afternoons, often in direct opposition to the winds aloft.
If you're flying XC in valley terrain, generally plan your flight to go with the wind aloft, but realize that the wind low in the valleys may be very different.
The windward side of a high mountain ridge may well be the lee side of a ridge facing the same direction in the valley and vice versa;
it usually only takes getting rotored hard once to appreciate this phenomena.

Say the wind is out of the West, and you're flying a valley that generally runs from south to north, with the top of it at the North end.
It's evening, you're getting low and returning from a long XC, and you're coming down the valley from the north.
A long spine sticks diagonally out into the valley from the East side, it's in the sun, and it's about a perfect glide from where you are now.
You know the wind is from the west aloft, so you head for southwest side of the spine, arrive there very low and get hammered because the valley wind,
with a strong valley flow, is pumping down the valley, essential from the North. You get rotored into the trees, it gets dark, you have a lousy walk.
Fred Wilson wrote:Advance knowledge of areas where lift is commonly found on XC Routes should be kept mentally on file. These include
a) areas where convective winds meet (example half way to Vernon from King Eddie, flying directly NW down the center of the Lavington Valley)
b) areas where convective waves propagate downwind from mountain ridges.
Examples of where convective wave propagation helps soaring can be found at
Mara, the West Face of Vernon Mt and Oscar's site at Savana.
(All these sites are also known for good wave soaring in flyable wind conditions which come as no surprize.)
Examples of where consistent sink is always found is where the area is in the down flow of wave propagation.
- Local examples includes the ridge on the XC flight from Mara heading south from Enderby to Armstrong and thence Vernon,
and especially on the XC route west from the west facing ridge a few Km east of Boleen Launch all the way to Grandview Launch at the North end of Vernon's Okanagan Lake.

The Flight


Although it may seem morbid, I repeatedly analyze my current XC flying situation by asking myself, "What's the worst possible thing that could happen here?"
This tool helps me choose what I want to do in light of what could kill me.
If there is a set of high-tension wires between me and my next thermal source, then it's key to get enough altitude to clear them.
Every flight has numerous situations that could be lethal, but I think being aware of the possible dangers is critical to avoiding them.
For example, scratching valiantly all way down to an LZ is a good effort, but not if it puts the pilot too low to glide to a safe LZ
(funny how trees tend to get bigger when you have to glider over them).

Understanding the dangers in every given situation also forces the pilot to have a plan.
I like to think of XC flights as a series of small steps that connect individual points into a line ending at a goal.
If you fly with a plan and an attitude of success, you won't get bogged down in indecision until you waffle your way to the ground.
Decide what you think will work and then try to do it; if your plan doesn't work you'll at least learn something about what not to do instead of suddenly being on the deck for no good reason.

Once in flight, always have an LZ you can effectively use within an easy glide.
While XC gods can get away with diving into areas without LZs, it's not a good plan to start with.
Once you gain altitude and go on glide to your next thermal source (cloud, ridge, whatever), switch from your first LZ to a new one.
This process will soon become instinctive, but until it does LZs define XC flying.
Like driving an unfamiliar road at night, safe XC flying demands an extra safety margin for unexpected conditions.

An often-heard XC mantra goes, "When you're high, fly the sky, when you're low, fly the ground."
Clouds are usually the best indicators of lift, so try to get to cloudbase and then work from cloud to cloud,
- paying attention that the cloud you're shooting for isn't developing extremely rapidly or decaying.
"Fly the sky" just means flying from one cloud or cloud street to another, based on how the clouds are developing or dissipating.
It's hard to make the switch from looking at the ground for thermal sources to the sky for lift, but the paradigm shift is essential for long-distance flying.

While thermaling up under a cloud, remember to look at the cloud regularly;
it's amazing how quickly you can be hundreds of feet below it one moment and totally whited out the next.
Plan your last turns to take you to the edge of the cloud, and leave a safe margin so you don't get sucked into the cloud.
If you do get sucked into a cloud, radical spiral diving is often the only effective method of descent in strong lift.
As I approach the bottom of a cloud, I like to dump trim, step on the speed bar and, if necessary, pull big ears while blasting out from under it.
If the lift is extremely strong, get a bearing on your compass before you hit the edge of the cloud so you can navigate out the side in a worst-case scenario.

While it's important to fly the sky, sooner or later you either end up low or flying on a day with no clouds.
First, while you are high and on days with clouds, try to connect the cloud to the feature or area that's causing the cloud.
Try to find patterns to thermal development for your area for particular types of days; on days with strong winds, thermals more often come off spines;
Low-wind days generally result in thermals from bowls, while areas where multiple ridges come together are often very reliable.
While every pilot has theories on what works for thermals and what doesn't, it's essential to develop your own models and check their accuracy, because in flight you've only got yourself.

If you get low, pick a likely spot in the sun, one that meets all your mental requirements for what a likely spot is, and wait for a thermal.
If you get to a suspected trigger point and find no thermals but zero sink, wait and things will probably get better.
You wouldn't leave your local site if a thermal didn't come through in thirty seconds, so treat your likely thermal spot the same way.
Ridge soaring is one good but often overlooked trick for staying in the game while flying XC;
you can use valley wind flow on a ridge to soar until a thermal comes through, just be careful to establish wind direction early.

Watch the vegetation, dust and trees to determine local wind direction.
For example, dry grass leans over in line with the wind, while leaves will flip upside down with the wind.
In addition to establishing wind direction, these changes often indicate that thermals are lifting off near the disturbance.
Dry, dark areas of ground produce better thermals than wet, lighter-colored areas, with moisture content more important than color.
For example, dark, dry fields are usually very active thermal generators while green grass seldom is.

In general, height is safety, both in case you put your wing through unexpected maneuvers and also so you don't land early and watch all your friends fly over your head at cloudbase.
Be patient with the day while flying XC, which means waiting for good conditions to develop, and also flexible, meaning that it's not only OK but often imperative to modify your goal as the day changes.
Flats generally take more time than mountain ridges to start working, as do deep valleys or shady hillsides. If there's no development for the next ten miles of air, get under a cloud and just wait for the sky to improve.
Likewise, unless you're at cloudbase, don't fly over shady areas. Thermals come from the sun, so no sun almost certainly means no thermals, no matter how much try.

Landing

Fight to the bitter end to stay up, but always accept your fate early enough that you can still make a good landing in a safe LZ.
Allow more room for error than you would at your local LZ; think about how carefully you looked at your local LZ the first time you flew it,
then think about having to establish the hazards and problems of a brand new LZ from the air.
Look at the ground for strings of telephone poles (visualize the wires running between the poles both in straight lines and at right angles to unseen poles),
ridges that could cause mechanical turbulence, drifting smoke, wind on lakes, dust blowing and any other clue you can find for wind direction and hazards in your LZ of the moment.

When choosing an LZ from the air, pick one shaped like a runway rather than one shaped like a square.
All other things being equal, long and narrow is better than short and wide because you can line up on final and not worry about needing to turn near the ground if you get unexpected lift or sink at the last minute.

I like to land fast rather than boating around waiting for something bad to happen, especially in strong mid-day conditions.
If I'm landing in a baking field, I usually come in hot, only flaring as my feet almost hit the dirt.
I've seen too many accidents where people come into an LZ and float aimlessly around, until they get hit with a strong thermal cycle or dust devil close to the ground.
Although I'm not sure why, it seems like landing in a field often precipitates thermals out of that field.
Flying a wing in too fast or too close to stall is extremely unstable. A good controlled flying speed is more likely to simply slam through small, violent thermals than be slammed by them.

If you’re committed to an LZ and you suddenly see trees or powerlines in your path, it's better to land downwind or crosswind, or force stall your glider to the ground than to hit most obstacles in LZs.
If the electricity doesn't kill you the fall out of the power lines will.

Remember to radio your potential landing position while you still have a line of sight or communication with other pilots in the air.
Your signal goes much farther from 500 feet above the ground than it will once you have landed.

Equipment for XC flying

- A wing you feel totally comfortable on. XC flying puts enough demands on a pilot's skill without having to learn how to fly a difficult wing.
Competition wings do have good glide and speed, but it's more important to trust your equipment in the lee of a big ridge or while landing in a tree-encircled LZ than to glide a little farther.

- A map of where you're going and where you could conceivably end up.
Most hunting stores sell these nifty clear map holders you can strap to your base tube.
I put my cheap compass in this clear case so I can navigate out of clouds should I get sucked into one.

- A first aid kit fortified with industrial strength painkillers, a loud whistle and industrial safety scizzors that can cut a victim out of their harness.
If you crash a long way from a road, your only chance may be to take good painkillers to help prevent shock and keep you clear-headed enough to talk to the rescue helicopter.

- Radios, both yours and the chase crew's, should have adequate batteries. I like to carry a spare clip of alkalines that I can plug into my radio in an emergency.
Agree on a frequency and write that frequency down so that if the dial gets pumped you can remember which channel to use.

- A GPS is a great tool for judging wind speed, landing position, air speed and distance.
Two GPSs are especially handy when flying over featureless areas, one for you and one for the chase vehicle.
"I'm over the brown field" generally won't get you retrieved, while Lat. and Long. coordinates will.

- Cell phones are increasingly useful for retrieval, especially if you fly with a list of numbers for all your flying buddies with cell phones.

- Water and food, especially water. You can walk two or three days without food, but you're dead without water.

- Matches, a signal mirror, a space blanket and flag tape are also all useful.

Bio: Will Gadd flew more 1000 total XC miles on his Edel Energy during the '95 season, and hopes to fly many more this year.
The opinions above are gathered from his own experience and comments from many other pilots.

Read about his X-Factor XC Record flight through Tiger Country from Vernon BC's King Eddie Flying site to Invermeme BC here. and here: http://gravsports.com/Golden_Canmore.htm
Last edited by Fred Wilson on Wed Dec 28, 2011 9:06 pm, edited 30 times in total.
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#264431
Soaring & Cross Country Flying Tecniques from the Soaring Association of Canada.

Read: http://www.sac.ca/index.php?option=com_ ... 1&Itemid=2

and https://ntc.cap.af.mil/ops/DOT/school/N ... niques.htm

Oxford University Gliding Club Local Weather Information http://users.ox.ac.uk/~gliding/weather.htm

and from www.faa.gov/ SOARING WEATHER (PDF)

Soaring Forecast - National Weather Service Text Product Display (Denver Co Example)

and http://www.pilotoutlook.com/aviation_we ... ng_weather

For more information here on the forum see Weather Forecasts That HangGliders Use

And: http://www.davisstraub.com/OZ/nwweather.php
__________________


GPS versus barometric altitude: the definitive answer: http://www.xcmag.com/2011/07/gps-versus ... ve-answer/

GPS usage in Hang Gliding and Paragliding http://stpxml.sourceforge.net/skygod/Na ... sinfo.html
Last edited by Fred Wilson on Tue Dec 27, 2011 10:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
By CAL
#264437
wow thanks Fred ! i will read up on it all !
By ksykes
#264455
Will Gadd is a PG pilot. A very good one. Only quibble I would have with what's in that section is the part that says you can't go upwind. A great way in a HG to practice XC without cutting the cord from your home LZ is to go upwind as you can get more than "one thermal" away while still having a glide back.
User avatar
By dave hopkins
#264477
ksykes wrote:Will Gadd is a PG pilot. A very good one. Only quibble I would have with what's in that section is the part that says you can't go upwind. A great way in a HG to practice XC without cutting the cord from your home LZ is to go upwind as you can get more than "one thermal" away while still having a glide back.
Wills info is great stuff but an other of point for HG pilots would be > If whited out use your speed( PGs have very little) to fly to the edge of most clouds.
Skills to practice at our local site to prepare us to go XC is also a important . More on this later. Wavey prefrontal clouds forming. Time to cut wood before the rain and snow.

Dave
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#264558
Thermalling:

Thermal Parameters from http://www.xcskies.com/science/products

A Three Part Manual on Thermalling by Will Gadd

How to thermal: Zen and the art of circles part 1: Finding Thermals

How to thermal: Zen and the art of circles part 2: Vertical motion

Hang gliding and paragliding techniques: Thermal Flying Part 1: Thermals

Hang gliding and paragliding techniques: Thermal Flying Part 2: Thermal generators and triggers

Hang gliding and paragliding techniques How to thermal better See: http://www.xcmag.com/2001/08/how-to-thermal-better/

Hang Gliding and Paragliding Techniques Finding, tracking and flying thermals in mountains See: http://www.xcmag.com/2003/02/the-hunt/

Thermal Flying Part 4: The Wind

Icaristics: Bruce Goldsmith on flying hexagonal cloud streets See: http://www.xcmag.com/2001/10/icaristics/

Cloud streets over Flatlands

Read also: Dynamic Soaring

Then read: Lee Side Thermalling and Icaristics: Flying in the Lee http://www.xcmag.com/2005/03/icaristics ... n-the-lee/

and from the OzReport:
BilleFly wrote:Catching a Lee side thermal.
Lake Tahoe we got Slide mt; which faces east. Morning heating will carry a thermal up slope.
We takeoff a few thousand feet below the summit. The Westerlies sometimes blow over from the backside and when vertical shear
in the thermal meets the horizontal component of the west wind up top, then your centering skills will need to be "Extremely Good"!!
-- Fall out of a 1500 ft/m thermal and Ya got the vertical shear to contend with.
-- fall out of it as your reaching the summit and you get to fly through a mountain rotor as you plummet. There have been Rigid Wings broken at Slide.

** Thermalling through an inversion layer.
When the thermal reaches the inversion layer, it will have the tenancy to Explode and Fragment as the core tries to ascend further.
Sometimes the core makes it through as it sheds the warmer and less buoyant outer layers, on its way up.
It usually makes for a Very Rude Ride! I could go on but i think Ya get the point !!
Fabiano Nahoum wrote:
I believe, as you point out, and as Tom´s account mentions, that horizontal shear, wind, mechanical turbulence, all play a part - and it´s not like they´re any help either
- but I still believe the vertical shear is the most dangerous component in that equation!
Yep-- I also Agree !!!!

How do "I" deal ?
Ya hardly Ever see me flat turning in these situations (!!) Will I ever win an XC comp because of this ? ----- NO

Lots of pilots will try & squeeze the Max lift with the most efficient turn possible.
What most pilots don't realize is that YOU only have to, mistakenly, exit the lift once then reenter, to make up the difference in my less efficient-- higher banked turn.
And Also:
I'm usually in the "Core" of the thermal with my less efficient turn; so when "I" fall out of the core I'm Not falling into down air most of the time, I'm falling into LESS Lift!!

Thirdly :
When i DO blow a turn and exit the lift; because of the higher bank angle I "Sometimes" have the energy to deal with the impending rudeness one would expect from the vertical shear component.

You are a COMP pilot so the likely-hood that you're better than me is quite high; so I'll direct this next statement to the
Up and Comers - that want better odds of surviving till they get enough knowledge to make there own informed decisions.

-- NEVER Turn the same 360 in the previous tract of the last one Ya just did; always look for more with a change-up, by as little as a 1/8 to a 1/4 span.
You will eventually get good at learning to trigger the entrance and exit of each 360, with very subtle differences in the high side and pitch,
that will make Ya slide a few feet one way or the other, in-order to sample air on a new tract, for each new turn.

-- ADD 5 - 8 degrees to the bank angle of your 360, (10 + in stronger air ); once you Know you're in lift for the entire 360;
... just Count on the fact that since your looking for better lift on Every 360 that the inefficiency of the higher bank angle will be made up for.
When Ya feel greater lift on part of your 360, then add a bit of bank at that spot and try and recenter on the that stronger bubble.
Most varios have a small delay, so Ya need to considerate WAY more to feel the differences in lift; this will give you a headache.

And WHEN Ya think you're ready:
Don't actually go to Slide Mt in the spring or early summer, (& take off Late).
But-- Just do a Mental exercise and envision what May happen as you approach the summit and your Still on the East facing side, when the West winds are prevalent, and your centering skills are Really up to par !
I personally believe that your Odds of Survive will be improved Greatly !! Bille
Last edited by Fred Wilson on Wed Dec 28, 2011 9:46 pm, edited 28 times in total.
User avatar
By dave hopkins
#264614
Fred Wilson wrote:
ksykes wrote:Only quibble I would have with what's in that section is the part that says you can't go upwind.
Yeah, well.... Sadly had to swallow my pride on that one a year ago. Sigh.

A bunch of us Hangies were ridge soaring Vernon Mt in strong, south winds last fall.
Doug Nitchie arrived too late to catch a ride, so lee side launched his PGer across the valley at Baldy.
He climbed out, boated around above us, then flew back across the valley to land at King Eddie.
Us HGers, all of us, Joe Po, Borg, myself and a few others were white knuckled the whole time.
A couple of us barely scraped into the baleout LZ. Arms and fingers exhausted from the bar pressure the whole flight.

Granted Doug Nitchie is one hell of a good PG pilot, and he files a super good ship, not a 2 liner.
But the days of saying PGers can't penetrate is "Gone With the Wind." Hard to swallow. Hard to admit, but this was God's truth that day. Sigh! :surrender:
________________________
:popcorn: For lots of more good Winter Blues Reading material see: http://www.flyok.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=437 :thumbsup: :mosh: :drool:
That is a really sad story. Get yourselves a rigid and put those days behind you . :goodidea:
Dave
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#264791
Soaring Association of Canada (SAC) Soaring Coaching Manual (PDF)

Flying through Inversion Layers and Wind Shears is a skill I have never mastered.
Only once have I managed to do so. It's quite annoying to see heaps of pilots way, way above you.

If any readers here have mastered this technique, I resoundingly encourage you to post your tips and hints here! Thanks!

Basic introduction to Wind Shears.

From GPS uses for Flying at: http://stpxml.sourceforge.net/skygod/Na ... sinfo.html
"Once airborne , and in case you manage to be up at cloudbase/inversion or ceiling, and decide it is time to go cross country, then make a decision which direction to go, based on the drift of the thermal.
Reaching the top of the thermal switch on your GPS. A GPS remembers that you had set the GOTO to 001 ( for example) and all you have to do, is press ENTER to activate 001 again.
If you did not do this before launch you will battle with gloves on to scroll through the list and choose the correct waypoint.
Assuming you selected the correct waypoint the GPS will now give you your distance from takeoff.
As you are heading off to start your cross country flight and make sure the arrow points straight back, indicating that you fly away from your start point and your distance increases.

Option 2 - high sample rate to find lost thermals

If you are not keen to collect a full track log of your flight and finding a lost core of a thermal is more important to you, then set your GPS to a 1 second sample rate.
And have your GPS switched on while taking off with a ZOOM of around 500 meters. Then you can use the GPS track plot to help core a lost thermal.
This works when you have a high sample rate , let's say every 1 or 2 seconds, but you gobble up memory this way.
And ( not confirmed) you use more battery power. If you fall out of a thermal, head back to your last turns as shown on the display. In most cases the thermal is still there.
But do not focus solely on your GPS. Rather look around, feel the wing, and relate your position and drift to the ground...
Not a nice idea if every pilot from now on stares only on his GPS and listens to his vario and does not look around. Scary ...

If you got a GPS with a limited memory and want a high sample rate, consider adding a datalogger to your gadget collection to collect the full track.
Or invest into one of those new fancy Vario/GPS combinations"

Next: from the Oz Report:
BilleFly wrote:Thermaling through an inversion layer.
When the thermal reaches the inversion layer, it will have the tenancy to Explode and Fragment as the core tries to ascend further.
Sometimes the core makes it through as it sheds the warmer and less buoyant outer layers, on its way up.
It usually makes for a Very Rude Ride! Could go on but i think Ya get the point!!
Fabiano Nahoum wrote:
I believe, as you point out, and as Tom´s account mentions, that horizontal shear, wind, mechanical turbulence, all play a part - and it´s not like they´re any help either - but I still believe the vertical shear is the most dangerous component in that equation!
BilleFly wrote:Ya hardly Ever see me flat turning in these situations (!!)
Will i ever win an XC comp because of this ?----------------NO

Lots of pilots will try & squeeze the Max lift with the most efficient turn possible.
What most pilots don't realize is that YOU only have to mistakenly, exit the lift once then reenter, to make up the difference in my less efficient-- higher banked turn.
And Also:
I'm usually in the "Core" of the thermal with my less efficient turn; so when "I" fall out of the core i'm Not falling into down air most of the time, I'm falling into LESS Lift!!

Thirdly:
When i DO blow a turn and exit the lift; because of the higher bank angle I "Sometimes" have the energy to deal with the impending rudeness one would expect from the vertical shear component.

You are a COMP pilot so the likely-hood that you're better than me is quite high;so I'll direct this next statement to the
Up and Comers-- that want better odds of survive till they get enough knowledge, to make there own informed decisions.

-- NEVER Turn the same 360 in the previous tract of the last one Ya just did; always look
for more with a change-up,by as little as a 1/8 to a 1/4 span. You will eventually get good at learning to trigger
the entrance and exit of each 360, with very subtle differences in the high side and pitch, that will make
Ya slide a few feet one way or the other,in-order to sample air on a new tract, for each new turn.

-- ADD 5 - 8 degrees to the bank angle of your 360, (10 + in stronger air ); once you Know your in lift for the entire 360;
just Count on the fact that since your looking for better lift on Every 360 that the inefficiency of the higher bank angle will be made up for.
When Ya feel greater lift on part of your 360, then add a bit of bank at that spot and try and recenter on the that stronger bubble this when your centering skills are Really up to par !
Most varios have a small delay, so Ya need to considerate WAY more to feel the differences in lift; this will give you a headache.
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#265497
XC Coaching Material Cont...

Davis Straub is an XC Addict. He has posted many, many excellent XC articles and support documents over the years. Tnx!

Many pilots wonder what it really takes to set a world record.
His book Cloudsuck is here in Book, ebook version and in a PDF format. See: http://ozreport.com/cloudsuck.php
You can find the Kindle version on Amazon.

It is being serialized online, as I understand with updated information.

Cloudsuck, Prolog and Chapter 1

Cloudsuck, Chapter 2

Cloudsuck, Chapter 3

Cloudsuck, Chapter 4

Cloudsuck, Chapter 5
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Google Latitude (Android, BB or iPhone) or Apple's Find my Friends App on their iPhones. Seems to be a simpler way of pilot tracking these days. Send the driver with an iPad with 3G connection and retrieval should be a breeze!

I've only tried both Apps I mentioned a bit (both free). I thought if people had compatible phones and shared email addresses, they could see who was close to them (mainly on the ground) - driver and pilots both.

SPOT is prime for emergencies of course but not friendly for sharing location with people around you.

Gaggle is not for iPhones - of course Find-My-Friends is only for iPhones (it's an Apple iOS App), but Google Latitude may be the ideal one as it works on all platforms.
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Lots of very useful information in:
FLYING RAGS FOR GLORY: AN A-Z OF COMPETITION FLYING
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More to come, for sure.
Last edited by Fred Wilson on Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:38 am, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
By dave hopkins
#265512
Getting through the inversion!
This skill is a real deal breaker. Knowing that there is an inversion and that lift should break through is important. some days it's so strong that it will not be broken and playing in that realm is just plain dumb.

Often thermals go up several 1000' after going through ,especially early in the day. So how do you do it. Well, the first thing to recognize is that you are hitting It. You have just climbed 3k drifted over the back a bit and the lift has fallen apart, wind has changed direction and your first instinct is to run for the ridge front.

Your at 3500', base was going to be 6000' and you want to go XC. If your at Ellenville 3500' will get you to sasquatch country.

Before you turn tail and run an other little voice says" you are hitting that pesky inversion'. You decide to stand and fight! Usually we need to turn down wind chasing the last remnant of workable lift. If its strong turn tighter, even if it kicks your butt. Wire snappers are found here. This can be a topsy turvy place. Now is the time to really focus on your averger. you are high and can still make it back out if needed, but you really need a climb. 100 fpm 150 or 200 any thing is good. you might have to circle in weak broken lift to get a climb. Work the hard snappers. :punch: Fly fast , bank high. After a few 360s you should be able to make some sense of it. You may have to work several hard pops along with weak broken. keep the climb going. usually after a few hundred ft it suddenly gets smooth and stronger and you drift up to base with a smile, looking for that next cloud over the back.

When you learned to thermal you learned to map the consistent lift of the core and stick with it. That plan doesn't work in the inversion. This is the realm of the unknown. Everyday is an adventure in getting a climb going. Have patience and faith. work hard at getting a climb That's the key. there is no substitute for experience but we have to start some place. Chase an experienced pilot into this realm and have faith.

dave
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#267306
A Beginners Introduction into Competition Soaring.

See article at: http://www.esparacing.com/sport_pilot/comp_soaring.htm

Then read: http://www.gfa.org.au/imis15/GFA/Sports ... aster.aspx

Soaring Techniques

Tnx to the Sail Plane Gurus.
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Cross Country Coaching Manuals cont....

Cross Country Clinic Course Outline

Cross Country Paragliding Competitions by Tom Payne: How to Get a Perfect Start

Cross Country Paragliding Competitions by Tom Payne: Tactics

Cross Country Paragliding Competitions by Tom Payne: A Task Setting Philosophy

Cross Country Safety Safety Tips for our favorite pastime. Includes: Competition and XC Planning Tips

Best Glide and Speed to Fly for Paraglider Pilots

Speed to Fly and the McReady Theory

The Bottom Line On Speed-To-Fly for Hang Gliders and Paragliders

Mads Syndergaard mentioned he was writing a book on competition paragliding. It's out now:

Flying Rags for Glory: an A-Z Guide to Competition Paragliding at XCShop.com Exerpts are now posted for browsing.
#267822
Waypoint Planner Upgrade + XC Planner and their Manuals
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Tom Paynes Waypoint Planner has just been Upgraded,
See: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=36354

Waypoint Planner User Manual: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=34143

- targeting online XC league supporting organizations like Leonardo and
XC Contest National and Regional XC Leagues via its National XContest and
XC Camp Fly-In Features

See: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=36354

Waypoint Planner User Manual: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=34143

Also Tom Paynes's XC Planner (Routes and Distances) http://www.paraglidingforum.com/xcplanner/

XC Planner User Manual http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=24141
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PS:
Follow the list of Nations that are being added to XC Contest XC Leagues here.

Would one of you be interested in submitting this idea to the USHPA Board of Directors?
- that the USA be added to XContest as a Nation to support XC Leagues.

- I have already done so to the Canadian HPAC Bod.
#267880
Ian Jarman, 1995 HGFA Australia Administrator wrote:"International standardization should be a CIVL/FAI goal.
Reinventing something that already exists to an acceptable standard is a waste of our already scant time and manpower resources."
Promoting Cross Country Flying - Spread Your Wings!

Denis Pagan has just volunteered to proof read this and provide input.
- He has years of experience putting this course on, all over the world. :thumbsup:

PS: Vote for your preferred HangGliding.org XC Camp choice!
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#270415
Dennis Pagen and avoiding the storms in flight

More Video segments (beyond the clip below) of his presentation continue here:
From http://klemencicmatjaz.blogspot.com/201 ... ms-in.html

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5_hjEgL ... p_play_all[/youtube]
User avatar
By Andrew Vanis
#270437
Great work/research Fred.

THANKS!

Keep it up.
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#295769
Thermalling Articles: http://www.hanggliding.org/wiki/Thermaling_tips (Updated)
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Dennis Pagan is now on board to update XC Manuals!
He has many articles from Hang Gliding Magazine etc he said he is willing to (update and) republish. :thumbsup:
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All in all a good bit of reading to while away those winter blues!
Last edited by Fred Wilson on Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:32 pm, edited 4 times in total.
By charles361
#299677
I do not think so, and also do not want to understand