Open Discussion; Creating XC pilots

On Sunday, July 20, 2014 7:15:06 AM UTC-4, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sat, 19 Jul 2014 06:47:55 -0700, son_of_flubber wrote:

An old hand wisely pointed out that I should savor all of the stages of learning to soar (for example, the 1-26 phase) and not be in a rush.

It's all fun.



Have you added flying mini-triangles to your repertoire yet?



By that I mean a small 3 or 4 turnpoint task with your airport at its

centre and legs or around 12-16km (8-10 miles), so the entire task counts

as local soaring and that you can easily go round more than once during a

flight. You'll find that flying round mini-triangles teaches you skills,

particularly if you use them as practise for staying high while going

faster, that you won't get from flying between randomly picked thermals.


A qualified yes. I'm working on coring thermals quickly and flying fast on headings. The local terrain and lift/sink is asymmetrical. I can play 'how far can I fly beyond that ridge line and still get home' going E W or S. There is a similar decision point to the north caused by a zone of dependable sink.

It's an interesting beautiful place to fly and I've never felt bored. http://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=44.10...81698&z=13&b=t