Region 12 contest cancelled ....

BRILLIANT! Absolutely brilliant.

You have nailed perfectly what I've tried (poorly) to convey. I wish you'd
been ther 25 years ago to tell me that.

Dan



"jcarlyle" wrote in message
...
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.

-John

On Sep 6, 7:32 pm, RAS56 wrote:
As a relative newcomer to the sport, my 2 cents on why there's a general
decline in participation in contest soaring is that there is a general
lack of a structure and interest of "passing XC knowledge" along in the
soaring community to new guys. Folks just want to go to the gliderport
on Saturday, assemble and fly, and I can't necessarily blame them.

Frank Paynter detailed many of these problems very precisely in the
latest issue of Soaring Magazine in the Condor column. Go read it...I've
encountered most of the problems he highlights and in fact have
communicated with him about my experiences and thoughts.

I started a thread about obtaining XC instruction a while back on this
forum in search of info. Sure, it's out there commercially if I want to
drop 3 grand (plus airfare and expenses) for a week's instruction....or
if I want to trailer my rig 1/2 way across country I might be able to
attend some "XC camps"...but why shouldn't we be able to obtain some of
this knowledge "locally" (or regionally) or perhaps by doing some online
training sponsored by the SSA? I don't want to "learn under fire" by
participating in a actual contest without picking up basic skills to
keep me out of trouble first.

You want more contest participation? Get more guys comfortable with
leaving the local area and going XC and I'll bet contest participation
will increase as well.

I'm not anywhere near ready to fly a contest yet...but I want to be!
But, from my perspective, it appears the barriers to "getting there" on
developing good XC skills currently require a level of commitment (in
time and money) that many weekend flyers look at...and walk away from.

Frank's article confirms this and offers some thoughts on fixing it
(Condor)...but that won't solve all the problems. Maybe every Region
should sponsor a Thermal/XC course for newbies (something like the folks
up at Air Sailing put on) before each contest season????? Sounds like a
good idea to me..

RS

--
RAS56

Condor doesn't eliminate the fear of doing "it" the first time.

"It" is landing out.

Most GFIGs are not particularly good at XC, focusing on beginners not
XC.

No CFIG wants to "land out", all want to return to home field for the
next paying customer...this is subconciously planted in every students
mind.

.................................................. ............................................
The #1 learning event that got me flying XC was getting in my car and
physically looking at every field I thought I might land in with
camera...slope, wind, obsticals, GPS coordinates, etc. This greatly
reduced the fear of "landing out".

My club has organized early season "field trips" to do this
basic...which have been alot of fun, especially for those on
motorcycles. We take tools to clear fields, streamers to indicate
wind, and cold beer to BS with.

Once you have or while you are getting your Silver Badge, go to a
contest, any contest, as pilot or crew, and listen with both ears wide
open.

LT

On 08/09/2011 19:35, HoUdino wrote:
Condor doesn't eliminate the fear of doing "it" the first time.

"It" is landing out.

Most GFIGs are not particularly good at XC, focusing on beginners not
XC.

No CFIG wants to "land out", all want to return to home field for the
next paying customer...this is subconciously planted in every students
mind.

.................................................. ...........................................
The #1 learning event that got me flying XC was getting in my car and
physically looking at every field I thought I might land in with
camera...slope, wind, obsticals, GPS coordinates, etc. This greatly
reduced the fear of "landing out".

My club has organized early season "field trips" to do this
basic...which have been alot of fun, especially for those on
motorcycles. We take tools to clear fields, streamers to indicate
wind, and cold beer to BS with.

Once you have or while you are getting your Silver Badge, go to a
contest, any contest, as pilot or crew, and listen with both ears wide
open.

LT


Yes, this is all true!

Also, as you say, one would be foolish to start on a cross-country first
time without doing a number of necessary things in preparation: Get in
your car and walk some fields you may land. Study your map. Learn your
machine and be able to land it very short, etc...

What condor is brilliant at is two things:
1) making you internalize a number of decisions you will need to be
making while cross-country. You can get used to this work flow for free
and get better and better at it. The big bonus the first time around,
and the next few times, is that since this type of decision making has
become second nature, the workload for the flight is lighter and you can
concentrate on what is most important and fly safer
2) the second thing is that after flying in Condor for a while you will
realize what you will realize after flying your first cross-countries:
if the weather is there, the lift will be there as well. Believe in the
weather and search it out rather than worrying about where the home
field is. It is this realization that probably marks the true transition
between local and cross-country flying. In Condor, you get a preview of
this for free.

On Sep 9, 4:35*am, HoUdino wrote:
The #1 learning event that got me flying XC was getting in my car and
physically looking at every field I thought I might land in with
camera...slope, wind, obsticals, GPS coordinates, etc. *This greatly
reduced the fear of "landing out".

Absolutely.

All the pros know where all the good landing fields are. Usually
they've had to use them all a few times!

You don't even need to know all that many -- maybe every 15- 20 km or
so if you've usually flying around 3000 ft AGL like we are here.
Certainly every 10 km -- always having a known good field within 5 km
in front or of behind you -- is getting towards overkill.

If you're thermal flying then the usual reason for landouts is that
the day has died. In that case you can be pretty sure of being able to
final glide quite a way to a good field .. sniffing for that one last
thermal on the way of course.

If you're doing wave/ridge flying in high winds then there is a much
higher chance of getting "dumped" and losing height rapidly. If you're
doing glides from one ridge to another then you really want to know
some landable place close to the start of each ridge in case you get
there too low or you get there and it's simply not working.

Thanks to all for the interesting and varied replies. My apologies to the thread starter, I didn't mean to hijack the topic, but it appears me putting my 2 cents in did just that! I've learned quite a bit just from reading through the responses..

My opinion was based on my experience level as a post-Bronze Pre-Silver badged pilot. Sports Class contests are closed to me, and it seems like there is a scarcity of options towards getting there. Trust me, my club has an active XC soaring community, including some of world renown..and I have spent plenty of time at the club house gleaning nuggets from these sages to use in my flying....but we have no real XC instructors, not much in the way of mentoring and no real program to get guys their Silver. Taking a club ship out of the local area is generally verboten, and although we have some provisions for allowing it to be done, I've never seen it happen.

Once again...my opinion and mine only..."generally" the soaring community makes it harder than it needs to be to get fledgling eagles out of the nest. Paynter recognized it in his article....heck even the SSA/SSF admits there's a problem! Consider the following taken from the "Cross Country Handbook" written back in 2002 which I found on the SSF's website:

http://www.soaringsafety.org/dl/Cros...ryHandbook.pdf


"Dear Cross-Country Student:

The SSA instituted the Master Instructor Cross-Country Program in response to member
demands for better access to cross-country instruction. This Handbook has been
developed as a guide for students attending cross-country camps and other pilots starting
out to fly cross-country. It summarizes the knowledge and skills needed to fly
successfully cross-country. It assumes that you already have acquired (and retain) the
knowledge and skills required to pass the knowledge and practical tests for the FAA
private pilot glider rating.
You will observe that the contents of this Handbook are expressed in the form of ground
and flight instruction. While many successful cross-country pilots have been self-taught,
this is somewhat analogous to jumping in at the deep end and teaching yourself to swim
straight after you discovered you could float and, perhaps, after having read ‘Swimming
for Dummies’. A much better way, both safer and quicker, is to learn with the help of a
qualified instructor.
Many glider pilots who have not flown cross-country, even those who have demonstrated
good local soaring skills, perceive barriers to safe and successful cross-country flight.
Some of these are physical - a lack of the various skills needed to make a safe and
successful cross-country flight; and some of these are psychological - probably
generalized as a fear of not getting to the planned goal, and being forced to endure the
risks and danger of an off-field landing, with no assurance of the safe outcome. These
psychological fears have likely been increased by personal experience, e.g. when pressing
further away from the home field, finding a couple of good looking clouds in succession
but discovering nothing except heavy sink, engendering a lack of confidence in the ability
to stay up. In addition, turning away from the home field, breaking the umbilical cord and
getting beyond gliding distance from it, is the opposite of what all previous flights have
involved, namely getting back safely.
The ground and flight instruction contemplated in this Handbook is intended, in part, to
contribute to a confidence building process to address and break down these
psychological barriers. This includes actually making landings at new fields, and
executing soaring flights which remain within gliding distance of an airport. You should
remember that the underlying logic of safe cross-country flight is based on the premise
that the probability of finding another thermal down the chosen route is just as high as
finding one close to your home field."

Notice in the above how important it is to have a XC instructor as part of your learning matrix and they acknowledge the reluctance most have to "just jump out there and do it!!" and concur with most folks decision to pass on a plan like that.

My plan now consists of continuing to plod along and essentially "self-teach" until/unless I can justify a long-distance trip to get some quality instruction. Fly Condor. Get really good at flying my glider and until I know I can put it where I want, when I want.

Thanks again for all the advice, opinion, and wisdom. It's the mix of those characteristics that draws me back to this forum daily.

Regards,

RAS