Cross country question? How is it done today?

About a month ago while flying a borrowed glider, my Streak batteries died and I had no GPS to tell me if I could glide back to the home base. I was mortified. Contemplated pulling the dive brakes and landing at the airport I was over, because 30+ miles with no glide computer and a 3k AGL day must be impossible. I am kidding. The reality is that when I have lost GPS, like this flight, I just fly a bit more conservatively because long distances are hard to judge, so I use closer points that are maybe 10-15:1 away to gauge progress.

As you have already discovered, you don't need a GPS or a Chart or a wiz-wheel. You need a sensible head and to pay attention to your surroundings and what the landmarks are doing as you fly towards them.

I can't eyeball a 40:1 glide and know I'm going to make it to that obscured place on the horizon, but I can sure tell that the field 10:1 away is sliding under the nose. I came sailplanes from hang gliders, where you rarely even consider using a chart or relying on a glide computer for glide calculation so concern with the glide computer started out very low for me. I actually fly with two in my glider. An L-Nav and a Dell Streak. They are set up differently and rarely agree perfectly on glide. That's useful since the Streak is my pessimist and the L-Nav is my optimist

Definitely get yourself a GPS. If nothing else, being able to review your logs in See You is an amazing tool for learning from your own decisions. You'll also gain an appreciation for the performance or lack thereof of your glider as you can see in real-time how you are doing towards a fixed point..

I do find that the GPS enables me to think farther ahead. If I'm 2000 above a conservative glide to an airport, I'm not spending as much time looking at closer alternatives. This is probably more of a high-performance glider issue than a 1-26 issue, but freeing processor cycles for more important activities is a good thing. If you think you can reach Airport X, and you have 5 landable fields in between you and Airport X, you'll be more comfortably focusing on the clouds or looking for birds or other indicators of lift. You get to focus on the soaring more as you've got an easily monitored data point to gauge your progress.

Sounds like you are doing it right though. Head out of the cockpit, field to field. Fun stuff. Don't be afraid to augment that judgement with tools that we have available.






On Wednesday, September 11, 2013 7:22:16 AM UTC-7, flgliderpilot wrote:
I am fairly green had my PGL for about 3 years now.



Been venturing into cross country, have done my first flight out to another airport, and last weekend, an out to that airport and return, about 30 miles round trip (in a 1-26, no ridges, it's all flat Florida). No it's not very far, but at least I am not just circling the airport for hours, and my enjoyment of soaring has been taken to a new level.



However, I was told recently by an older experienced pilot that using a GPS is "not the correct way to do it". Instead I should be thinking "can I get there... now can I get there... can I get there...". I understand this ideology, but I am pretty sure nearly everyone is using GPS these days.



So, does this mean I should not use modern navigation technology? I know how to plot a cross country flight on paper of course, and required altitudes to the next safe landing area.



Does this mean I should I actually be drawing circles on charts, carrying a slide ruler to calculate arrival height at various distances, and mechanically doing everything my GPS is doing for me? This means I am not looking for traffic, or thermalling but instead flipping through charts and playing with a slide ruler or E6B, and my eyes are not outside the canopy.



Anyway, please enlighten a new pilot, I am listening intently. if I should not be using a GPS at this point I'll go without.



Thanks

Tom