On Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:59:49 -0700, jcarlyle wrote:

RAS,

I come down between John Cochrane and Alexander Georgas, and more with
Dan Marotta - I suggest learning XC yourself. Please note that I’m
limiting the discussion to learning XC in areas such as eastern
Pennsylvania, under thermic conditions, nowhere near mountainous
terrain, and with plenty of landable fields. Then, there are only 7
steps you need to take to safely fly XC - 2 attitudinal, 3 flying, and 2
organizational.

The first step is deciding that you absolutely, truly want to fly a
glider XC. There will be some discouraging times, and you must make a
firm, unswerving commitment to keep on trying. The second step is firmly
believing that thermals are everywhere. If the day is developing such
that thermals are all around your home airport, you must have
unquestioned confidence that they are also out there beyond gliding
distance.

The third step is practicing thermalling until you are able to keep the
glider up several times for 3 hours, with a few climbs from down low
each flight. This give you the confidence that you can not only find and
work thermals, but that you won’t get rattled when you need altitude.
The fourth step is practicing landing until you can put the glider down
and stop it inside of a 300 foot distance, every time, no excuses. This
gives you the confidence that if you can’t stay up, you have the skills
needed to land the glider in a farmer’s field. The fifth step is
identifying from the air suitable off field landing sites (I use the
SSSSLOWW mnemonic - size, surface, slope, surroundings, livestock,
obstructions, wind, wires). Good fields change with the season, and you
must drive out afterwards to validate your choices until you don’t make
mistakes

The sixth step is always having a gassed up vehicle hooked up
mechanically and electrically to a suitable trailer for retrieves. You
are eventually going to land out somewhere where an aerotow isn’t
possible, so always be prepared. The seventh step is always arranging
with someone at the home airfield to retrieve you if it becomes
necessary. The friend you think you can always rely upon to get you if
you simply call him up might be on a business trip that day.

That’s all you need! I don’t like the sorts of courses Alexander
suggests, because in my view one tends to get quite discouraged,
thinking that there is so much to learn that XC must be very difficult
to do. John’s suggestion of a sports class regional is good, but only
after you’ve learned how to fly XC. I was quite intimidated and very
nervous during my first sports class regional, which if I’d had less
confidence in my ability to fly an XC task would have been a deal
breaker. Dan’s suggestion of asking questions of experienced XC pilots
is quite good, and you should definitely do that. But I believe XC is
something that you need to teach yourself, and you improve in direct
proportion to the number of times you go out and do it.

Whatever way you decide to go, though, RS, do make an attempt to try XC
flight. It’s an amazing feeling of accomplishment, and it’ll open up a
new soaring world for you.

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.

You can do this while working on your Silver badge, so I'd suggest you
start in on that ASAP because you can do two legs (height gain and
duration) while local soaring and treat the 50 km leg as your first solo
XC flight.

In my club this is the norm: a new solo pilot is encouraged to work on
his Bronze badge (50 solo flights of which at least two must exceed 30
minutes off the winch [60m off an aero tow to 2000ft or less], a written
test, a flying test [includes stalling, spinning and launch failures] and
observed field landings or spot landings on an specified and unusual part
of the field). Then you add the XC Endorsement to the Bronze (one and two
hour solo soaring flights plus dual seat field selection, field landing
and navigation exercises [we do these in a Schreibe motor glider]). All
these (the Silver height and duration legs and the Bronze endorsement 1
and 2 hour flights) can be and usually are done as some of the 50 Bronze
solo flights.

The field landing and navigation exercises are usually the last to be
done and then an instructor will brief the pilot and send him off on his
Silver distance on the first suitable day after he qualified for the
Bronze XC Endorsement.

Again, you don't need to fly anything special to do this: I did all my
solo flying up to and including Silver Distance in the club's SZD
Juniors, and all off the winch too: I got my solo aero-tow signoff after
my Silver C.

If your club doesn't have an equivalent program, you and any club mates
with similar experience could probably organize a similar program for
yourselves. I found it a good stepping stone. The experience of doing the
mini-triangles and the Silver Distance made the next step (the UK's 100km
diploma) a lot less daunting.

As to time, it took me almost exactly a year of weekend flying to go from
first solo to Silver C, but we had a lot of good soaring weather that
year and the Juniors had good availability, with 6 - 8 of us sharing them
that year. If I remember right, three of us got Silver Height on the same
day in them.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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