I personally wouldn't suggest Reichmann to a budding XC pilot until he
had actually done some XC flying. For learning about thermalling, I'd
steer them towards "Thermalling Made Easy" by Bob Wander and
"Thermals" by Rolf Hertenstein.

Don't get me wrong, Reichmann is an excellent resource, he covers XC
flying thoroughly, and he has some great exercises. The problem for me
is his writing style - it's dense and very hard to get through. Heck,
I've had quantum mechanic texts that were more accessible! It took
several readings before I could truly say that I understood the
concepts Reichmann was explaining. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised to
learn that Reichmann's book is a big reason for XC flying being viewed
as difficult.

-John

On Sep 7, 8:32 pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
Might I add that finding and working through a copy of Helmut Reichmann's
'Cross-country Soaring' may be a good idea, particularly what he has to
say about practising thermal entry, climbing and exit.

Also flying mini-triangles: lay out triangular courses with easily
visible turnpoints. These need not be more than five 5 miles from home in
any direction, or put them all within gliding range of the field at
first, and work on going faster round this course. You'll be surprised
how used you'd gotten to bimbling from one thermal to the next and what a
wrench it is to break this habit and stop to climb less often. You can
use almost any glider for this: I did quite a bit of it in the club's SZD
Juniors using a 26 mile triangle with its furthest point being 7.6 miles
from home and all three corners being local landmarks with the club's
field in the middle. Better yet, if you keep your furthest point within 5
miles of home, you can do this before you have any XC signoffs, At least
you can in the UK where local soaring is defined as staying within
gliding distance of home and doesn't require you to carry a map.

[snip]
--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |