Just once - Get someone who knows a little about this in the back seat
of a two seater and head off.
If the person in the back seat knows what they are doing as per point
one - they will not only make sure the necessary arrangements are in
place for eventualities like outlandings, but will involve you in making
them so you start to learn the ropes.

Gliding clubs are great in that it doesn't matter whether you made
explicit arrangements in advance - the other chaps will generally come
and fetch you on the assumption/principle of "there but for the grace of
God, go I..."

My first attempt XC was pre solo - in a L13 Blanik - we did 32km out and
return. Started at 11,000" - I took an hour and got us back at 10,000".
Now that's caution. My experienced someone in the backseat was happy to
dispose of the excess height with 11 or so consecutive loops and a
couple of chandelles.

These days I could easily do the out and return from the same starting
height as a final glide in my Kestrel. But then it was a nail biting
experience being out of glide range of the airfield.

Next attempt was - get in a single seater, get 3,000" AGL and just go.
It is liberating to do it the first time on your own, you realise that
if you can stay airborne for a couple of hours, you could and should be
covering ground.

One good exercise is to practice final glides. Fly away from the
airfield staying high. Once you are 10km or so away glide back, but do
not stop to thermal. When you get back to the field climb up again and
repeat. A couple of good things happen.

You will probably be pleasantly surprised to discover that you can go a
lot further than you thought.
You get practice at climbing away from a lower height - which is
invaluable at avoiding those outlanding adventures...
You learn the performance of your glider.
You eventually stop worrying whether the airfield is in range and start
flying to go somewhere else.

Cheers
Bruce

On 2011/01/07 5:19 PM, tstock wrote:

Hi everyone, I've been reading "Advanced Soaring Made Easy" by Bernard
Eckey, and this is a fantastic book for a new pilot. It does discuss
learning to get out of the comfort zone of flying safely within glide
range of the airport. This is something I am just venturing into
myself and I was curious how some of you went about this when you were
learning?

When and how did you cut the strings for the first time? Was it with
an instructor? Did you do it in small steps, or did you just plan a
cross country flight? Or did you land out by accident once and get
thrown over that initial fear?

Since I am still renting a glider, it can be a bit of a problem if I
land out, but I would like to start flying a bit further outside my
comfort zone.

I was considering asking a more experienced pilot if I could "ride
along" with them on a cross country flight to help me get over the
butterflies.

Any advice appreciated,
Tom


--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771 & Std Cirrus #57