On Nov 19, 11:44*am, "kirk.stant" wrote:
On Nov 19, 10:17*am, wrote:



You don't need any of that stuff to master most of the important
elements of soaring.
Learn to stay up reliably when weather is "reasonable'. Then start
some short cross countries
that you have laid out with a chart- Yes some people still use them.
If you are not flying with
sufficient margins to not nee glide computer stuff, you are too low.
Then, go do your Silver badge.
After that- think about adding extra stuff.
It is a huge confidence builder to know you can get home when all the
tools die.
FWIW
Good Luck
UH

Walt, UH is absolutely correct - focus on the basics (and get some
good books on advanced & XC soaring and study them) then practice
until you are comfortable in both weak and strong conditions.

When you are starting to venture out into unknown areas (or getting
ready for your first contest - kinda the same thing, really) then is a
good time to start looking at glide computers, moving maps, etc.

They (flight computers) are a lot of fun to use, if setup
intelligently, but cannot replace basic skills; to use them
effectively your flying has to have progressed to the point that it is
becoming instinctive.

Good luck!

Kirk
66

I'm a little timid about going against the conventional wisdom, in
part because it sounds so logical, but I just went through this 3 and
4 years ago and right now I am watching newish pilots at this stage,
and I have a different view. Where I fly there is no lift at the
field, so you generally take a 6 to 9 mile tow to a lift generator,
for example Mt. Washington (north of Seattle). When you're learning to
thermal you stay as long as you can and then 'final glide' back to the
field. My advice to new pilots is to repeat that flight over and over,
keeping track of the departure and arrival altitudes; then move to
another thermal generator and repeat. Having SYM on a PDA/PNA with
ONLY the distance,bearing, and arrival altitude (in a large font) and
with map and Terrain turned off, isn't a distraction and won't hurt
you. You will get used to having the information so that one day when
you are coming back low or need to make another field you can just fly
the bearing and get home safe. That sure saved my ass one day when I
unexpectedly needed to know exactly where to go and had zero time to
figure it out. I still fly with very little information on the
screen, I think I added only wind to the mix so far.

Brian