Extending new pilot comfort zone?

On Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:58:35 -0800, Morgan wrote:

Planning and preparation will probably help with the fear more than
anything. Confidence in your ability to land the glider exactly where
you want at minimum energy without using the altimeter is critical in my
mind.

Yes, good points - especially the point about not using the altimeter,
which *will* be telling lies during a field landing since you won't know
how high the field is.

Along with that goes not getting reliant on ground features round the
home field.

It strikes me that a decent final glide computer might be a good pre-xc
confidence builder. I'm thinking of something cheap and portable like
XCSoar or LK8000 running on a Binatone B.350 satnav. Of course, that does
require a way to mount it in the glider you're using.

The advantages are two-fold:

(1) you can get familiar with this type of instrument before you use it on
xc flights
(2) if you set a cautious safety altitude[1], make sure the
glider's polar is selected and load a task with your home field as
the single turn point, the glide computer will continuously show you
where home is and how much you're above the glide path back to there.
In the right conditions you can extend the local soaring[2] quite
considerably.

I'll do this if I'm just local soaring on a non xc day. On one of those
flights I knew that I had reached the local soaring limit when I was 35
km away from home, but I was upwind of home and at 5300 ft at that point.
I'd also confirmed that the final glide computer was, if anything,
conservative in its calculations on previous, shorter flights.

Using such an instrument in the way I've described and gradually
extending your local soaring radius should give you confidence that your
instruments and (hopefully, steadily improving judgment) aren't
misleading you about your ability to spot your home field and get back to
it. You can also fly mini-triangles[3] round your field, which will
vastly improve your navigational skills and your ability to use lift to
fly along a predetermined course.

[1] The 'safety height' is the target arrival height AGL at the
turnpoint. The computer uses this along with wind speed, wind
direction and the glider's polar when deciding if you're above or
below the glide path.

[2] 'Local soaring' in the UK means being within gliding distance of
home, i.e. that you can get there without needing a climb. UK rules
also require you to have a map onboard if you're more than 5 miles
from the home airfield.

[3] Mini-triangles are small practise tasks that you mark on your map
and/or set as a task in the glide computer before take-off. You fly
them as though they are an xc task. They are quite short (15 - 20
miles) and with the turnpoints chosen so you're never more than 5-8
miles from home. In good conditions you might fly two or more laps
in the same flight.

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

Many potentially-useful and helpful insights have come before...good stuff.

That said, here's a one-word attempt at additional context: KISS.

Ask yourself why it is *you* have your 'not done it yet' XC fears. If they're
rationally based, odds are they'll all more or less boil down to fear of
breaking something (ideally, the glider/your butt!).

Next ask yourself why these fears exist.

Lastly, take the simplest actions designed to sensibly remove those fears'
underlying causes. (Hint: none of the simple actions have anything to do with
electricity, computers or technology, as evidenced by the fact that safe,
accident-free XC was being performed by newbies way back in the 1930's...or,
almost before real people existed. WARNING: Readers wishing not to be exposed
to dry humor should skip the sentence preceding this one!!!)

Anecdotal example of successful use of KISS Principle applied to 1st-XC follows...
- - - - - -

Context - newly licensed glider-only pilot, 23-years old, hugely ignorant
about 'this soaring thing' but definitely hooked. All prior experience
entirely in a 2-33 (~14.5 hrs) and a 1-26 (~ 31 hrs), all in Cumberland,
(mountainous, western) MD. Natural fear (plus native common sense and lack of
lift?!?) underlay the lots-of-'OFL-practice' shown in the logbook as part of
the above stick time, said OFL practice consisting mostly of practicing short
landings over imaginary approach obstacles onto different 'spots' of an
unfamiliar paved runway, trying to ignore the altimeter (and, in rain, being
forced to ignore the non-functioning airspeed indicator).

Then exactly one month after licensing, my fellow newbie glider-only-time
ship-partner(& decade older 'geezer') in the 1-26 built (and now 'suddenly'
but-one-third-owned by our former instructor), suggested the 3 of us go
out-of-state to another club's 3-day-weekend fun fall contest. ("Hey! It's in
the flatlands of Ohio; what could go wrong?!?" "Well, for two, I could bust
the ship and my butt...")

I resolved to at least get one thermal away from the home field (and try to
get back, ha ha) before contest weekend, then less than 2 weeks away, before
mentally committing to the idea of actually *intentionally* going XC, no
matter how many other maniacs populated my nearby airspace over the wilds of
Ohio. And a great plan it was...even though it also resulted in my first-ever
OFL when timing conspired to have me choose my 'one thermal away' on the
trailing edge of the thermic airmass adjoining one more worthy of useful
performance testing. How embarrassing. How alarming! How...do I manage to not
bust the glider/my butt when I am obviously not going to make it back to the
airport? (Hey, at least my test condition was validated!) The KISS-based input
of my instructor combined with my own fears worked just fine for the
entirely-unwanted situation and I wound up landing in the Potomac River
bottoms in the only field (pasture, ugh) around I deemed even remotely
acceptable (it was great, of course), about 3 air-miles from the airport.

Next weekend (in Ohio) I went out and placed 4th (of 12) on a 35-mile O&R 1-26
course, judged my final glide so well I easily remained aloft to bag my
5-hour, and averaged a whopping 12 mph. (Those ahead of me had obviously
cheated or lied, given their claimed speeds twice that of mine. Those behind
me had all landed out, the incompetent twits...wait!...one of those twits was
the then-reigning 1-26 National Champion. There might be more to this sport
than is first apparent...!)

The next day fellow newbie and I retrieved our former instructor from *his*
(first!) landout, that latter fact being divulged only after we were returning
to the airport, glider in tow. (No WONDER he'd seemed so genuinely happy when
they retrieved me the previous weekend!)

That was all it took for me to conquer my XC demons/fears/worries...beLIEVing
that what I'd been taught/gleaned about how to pick a field would work. The
bad news is that if you ever do break anything on an OFL (35+ years and ~20
OFL's later, I haven't yet), if you're honest with yourself, you'll have to
live with the conclusion that odds are it was *your* fault. (Human eyesight
isn't sufficiently good to completely eliminate the inherent terrain
micro-surface risks associated with OFLs, but those things tend 'merely' to
induce gear-related damage, not include life-threatening risks.)

For me, doing basic skills and field-assessment homework beforehand, and
scrupulously applying the proper lessons, proved a liberating, powerful
approach. Everything else is 'just' experience...which will come with
continued time and exposure, neither of which will invalidate those necessary
basics.
- - - - - -

Have fun!!!

Regards,
Bob W.