LAK-12 Question

"BG" wrote in message
...
kirk.stant wrote:
BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

US use of term aggressive may be cultural, come to think about it...

Changing the subject, it's interesting that you have the same problem
we have of clubs not liking XC flights. There really seems to be two
types of glider pilots out there, at times!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

Hi Kirk

As I said probably semantics.
Have been actively working on getting some of our members to fly a little
further. Limited success so far, but I am painfully persistent...

We definitely have a few kinds of glider pilots. Broadly the goldfish bowl
types and the XC types. Wild variation in other attributes within the
groups. For example the highest risk taker and most likely candidate for a
BIG moment in a glider - feels the danger represented by outlanding is too
high to risk, and flies very limited XC in very conservative mode. Then
does low level aerobatics and redline wormburners over the runway at home.
One has to wonder.

Inadvertently changed my signature there when I re-installed my news
reader - have to fix it.

Bruce

One way to describe agressiveness is that a conservative pilot will fly M=2
on a 4 knot day and an agressive pilot may fly M=8 on a 4 knot day. With
flight analysis programs feeding NMEA data to PDA glide software you can
determine the McCready setting the pilot is using. I see a lot of very
successful pilots flying aggressively that way. These guys succeed because
they're very good at finding their next source of lift.

Another way to describe a conservative XC pilot is that he will always have
two 'known-safe" landing spots within gliding range using half his published
max L/D corrected for headwind/tailwind.

I'm conservative both ways.

I'm not sure what scares pilots most about landouts. I find that light
airplane pilots with a lot of XC experience are less stressed than those who
have rarely landed away from their home field. It's probably just fear of
the unknown - what they don't know is that airportrs are pretty much alike.

It's also possible instructors, knowingly or otherwise, have taught landing
patterns using landmarks near the home field. The student instinctively
knows the "red barn" he uses to turn base won't be there at another airfield
and that scares him. It's really great if a student can get experience
landing at several different fields.

Bill Daniels

"Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote in message
. ..
I'm not sure what scares pilots most about landouts. I find that light
airplane pilots with a lot of XC experience are less stressed than those
who have rarely landed away from their home field. It's probably just
fear of the unknown - what they don't know is that airportrs are pretty
much alike.


It's not other airports that create the pucker factor, no worries there.
It's the obstacle in the field that you couldn't see until you were on final
that makes me conservative. I've only had 5 'aux vaches' landouts and on
one of them there was an obstacle I didn't see until I was turning final.
The Mosquito can make a nice steep approach and I'd conserved my
altitude/options so all ended well. That surprise on final did reinforce my
conservatism.

Bill Daniels wrote:

Bruce

One way to describe agressiveness is that a conservative pilot will fly M=2
on a 4 knot day and an agressive pilot may fly M=8 on a 4 knot day. With
flight analysis programs feeding NMEA data to PDA glide software you can
determine the McCready setting the pilot is using. I see a lot of very
successful pilots flying aggressively that way. These guys succeed because
they're very good at finding their next source of lift.

An interesting observation. My experience with flying in regional and
national contests around the country is different: the best pilots don't
cruise much faster than the mediocre pilots, but gain their speed from a
better choice of where to fly (more lift, less sink), and are much more
selective about the thermals they take. The mediocre pilot takes that 4
knot thermal Bill mentions, but the good pilot waits for (and finds) the
6 knot thermal.

Another way the good pilot gets that high cross-country speed is by
staying out of trouble, mostly by recognizing a poor situation ahead in
time to handle it easily. The mediocre pilot isn't aware of the problem
as early.

Note that I'm using "good" and "mediocre" instead of "aggressive" and
"conservative". A good pilot can fly much faster than a mediocre pilot
and still be flying more conservatively.

Bill, how do you tell what MC setting a pilot is using from looking at a
flight trace? Perhaps you meant "a fairly steady cruise speed equivalent
to an MC setting of ..."? The good pilots I've flown with don't follow
an MC setting, but cruise at a fairly constant speed.


--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
news:iQ40i.7879$XG1.4760@trndny07...
Bill, how do you tell what MC setting a pilot is using from looking at a
flight trace? Perhaps you meant "a fairly steady cruise speed equivalent
to an MC setting of ..."? The good pilots I've flown with don't follow an
MC setting, but cruise at a fairly constant speed.

Just change the McCready setting on the PDA software until the speed-to-fly
command matches what the pilot was doing. GPS_LOG can automatically set
McCready to the average of the last (n) thermals. If that results in a lot
of "slow down" indications, the pilot was overflying the conditions.

Actually, these pilot also fly at a pretty constant speed - 110 knots IAS.
(GPS_LOG also makes a pretty good guess at the IAS.)

Bill Daniels