Region 12 contest cancelled ....

On Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:59:49 -0700, jcarlyle wrote:

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.

Might I add that finding and working through a copy of Helmut Reichmann's
'Cross-country Soaring' may be a good idea, particularly what he has to
say about practising thermal entry, climbing and exit.

Also flying mini-triangles: lay out triangular courses with easily
visible turnpoints. These need not be more than five 5 miles from home in
any direction, or put them all within gliding range of the field at
first, and work on going faster round this course. You'll be surprised
how used you'd gotten to bimbling from one thermal to the next and what a
wrench it is to break this habit and stop to climb less often. You can
use almost any glider for this: I did quite a bit of it in the club's SZD
Juniors using a 26 mile triangle with its furthest point being 7.6 miles
from home and all three corners being local landmarks with the club's
field in the middle. Better yet, if you keep your furthest point within 5
miles of home, you can do this before you have any XC signoffs, At least
you can in the UK where local soaring is defined as staying within
gliding distance of home and doesn't require you to carry a map.

You can do this while working on your Silver badge, so I'd suggest you
start in on that ASAP because you can do two legs (height gain and
duration) while local soaring and treat the 50 km leg as your first solo
XC flight.

In my club this is the norm: a new solo pilot is encouraged to work on
his Bronze badge (50 solo flights of which at least two must exceed 30
minutes off the winch [60m off an aero tow to 2000ft or less], a written
test, a flying test [includes stalling, spinning and launch failures] and
observed field landings or spot landings on an specified and unusual part
of the field). Then you add the XC Endorsement to the Bronze (one and two
hour solo soaring flights plus dual seat field selection, field landing
and navigation exercises [we do these in a Schreibe motor glider]). All
these (the Silver height and duration legs and the Bronze endorsement 1
and 2 hour flights) can be and usually are done as some of the 50 Bronze
solo flights.

The field landing and navigation exercises are usually the last to be
done and then an instructor will brief the pilot and send him off on his
Silver distance on the first suitable day after he qualified for the
Bronze XC Endorsement.

Again, you don't need to fly anything special to do this: I did all my
solo flying up to and including Silver Distance in the club's SZD
Juniors, and all off the winch too: I got my solo aero-tow signoff after
my Silver C.

If your club doesn't have an equivalent program, you and any club mates
with similar experience could probably organize a similar program for
yourselves. I found it a good stepping stone. The experience of doing the
mini-triangles and the Silver Distance made the next step (the UK's 100km
diploma) a lot less daunting.

As to time, it took me almost exactly a year of weekend flying to go from
first solo to Silver C, but we had a lot of good soaring weather that
year and the Juniors had good availability, with 6 - 8 of us sharing them
that year. If I remember right, three of us got Silver Height on the same
day in them.


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

I personally wouldn't suggest Reichmann to a budding XC pilot until he
had actually done some XC flying. For learning about thermalling, I'd
steer them towards "Thermalling Made Easy" by Bob Wander and
"Thermals" by Rolf Hertenstein.

Don't get me wrong, Reichmann is an excellent resource, he covers XC
flying thoroughly, and he has some great exercises. The problem for me
is his writing style - it's dense and very hard to get through. Heck,
I've had quantum mechanic texts that were more accessible! It took
several readings before I could truly say that I understood the
concepts Reichmann was explaining. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised to
learn that Reichmann's book is a big reason for XC flying being viewed
as difficult.

-John

On Sep 7, 8:32 pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
Might I add that finding and working through a copy of Helmut Reichmann's
'Cross-country Soaring' may be a good idea, particularly what he has to
say about practising thermal entry, climbing and exit.

Also flying mini-triangles: lay out triangular courses with easily
visible turnpoints. These need not be more than five 5 miles from home in
any direction, or put them all within gliding range of the field at
first, and work on going faster round this course. You'll be surprised
how used you'd gotten to bimbling from one thermal to the next and what a
wrench it is to break this habit and stop to climb less often. You can
use almost any glider for this: I did quite a bit of it in the club's SZD
Juniors using a 26 mile triangle with its furthest point being 7.6 miles
from home and all three corners being local landmarks with the club's
field in the middle. Better yet, if you keep your furthest point within 5
miles of home, you can do this before you have any XC signoffs, At least
you can in the UK where local soaring is defined as staying within
gliding distance of home and doesn't require you to carry a map.

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

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

On 9/6/2011 5:32 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.

You seem to have this aspect of weekend (U.S., club-based) soaring accurately
diagnosed, IMO. The time some (not all) folks want to BS is *after* the day's
soaring. *Then* is a great time to listen in and occasionally prime the pump
with ad-hoc questions of personal interest. You'll soon figure out which
pilots are genuinely interested in helping you ascend to the next level by
sharing their own experience(s); bug 'em, they'll be happy to share.


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.

Others have already shared lots of insightful, usable info regarding the
issues raised in the preceding paragraph. I'll second the observations that:
a) making the time/personal commitment to safely and sanely (which is not to
say 100% risk-freely [but darned close to it!]) learn how to choose/land-in
fields is perhaps THE largest actual hurdle to flying XC, and b) it really is
self-taught in the sense that nothing about it can be short-cutted, in an
experience sense. You can learn from others most of the (easily avoidable)
'dumb mistakes' to avoid, but the difference between 'book learning' and
'usable knowledge' comes only with the actual making of OFLs. Retrieving
others is a darned good approximation, though...


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.

FWIW, that's exactly what I've seen in my club from ~1983 until ~2000 (at
which time some formalization of training also began available for the first
time). So far as I'm aware, the club has always (via its bylaws) encouraged
members to take club ships XC, but few did who had not also made the personal
commitment on their own to do so. For many years there were no instructors who
regularly (or even actually) flew XC, and formal XC-dual training consisted
mostly of performing an 'OFL' at an airport about 8 miles distant.
Encouragingly, very few club ships were ever damaged in farm-field-based landings.

Eventually, some instructors, almost certainly encouraged by a cycle of
XC-wannabe pilots (perhaps in situations similar to yours), began to offer
actual dual XC, and in the past 5-10 years the club has seen a blossoming of
XC-/contest-mentorship, using club 2-seaters. Time will tell how long this
lasts, but in the absence of 'disaster based scenarios,' history suggests that
- in this club, anyway - change and 'near-stasis' have years-long time constants.

One constant throughout the years has been that it has always been motivation
from the individual pilot that underlay growth of XC skills and comfort level.
FWIW, I 'self-taught' myself XC, almost exclusively in the intermountain west,
and almost exclusively alone (in shared flight path terms). Rarely scared
myself. Even more rarely ever put the ship at known risk (and then only once
per scenario, rueful head shaking). Had gobs of fun doing so. The only OFL
damage ever inflicted were minor fabric holes in the belly of a 1-26 from poor
choice of a plowed (only! - not disked) field. Never felt others were
hindering my learning. Eventually realized that no amount of proselytizing on
my part could induce anyone who was not yet ready to 'make the commitment' (to
learn XC) to join me, even when they were flying their own ships.


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.

Almost certainly exactly right, though I suspect many pilots don't actually
formalize the thought process so clearly.

All anyone needs, in order to be able to find some level of contest in which
their skills wouldn't guarantee them last place, is the genuine ability to 'be
comfortable with' making an off-field landing choice. The first contest in
which I ever flew (Marion, OH, in a 1-26), I finished 4th (of 12) and
absolutely crushed the reigning national 1-26 champion. My strategy was simply
to complete the course; da champ landed out on my flying day (there were 3 of
us sharing the ship). My next contest flight (the old Black Forest, CO) in an
HP-14 I again finished 4th because most everyone else landed out; I'd been
ready to numerous times, but was motivated by a dismal trailer to keep
plugging away. Both - and all other XC - flights were made 'easily mentally
possible' simply by previously-learning how to 'relaxedly' pick fields then -
if necessary - land in them. I'd made exactly 1 OFL prior to the Ohio flight,
and 3 more prior to the Colorado flight.


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


Have fun!
Bob W.

P.S. I've long used S-O-A-R as a mnemonic for choosing landing fields. "S" for
surface. If it's no good, no need to continue to the..."O" for obstructions
(on/to the surface, e.g. a lone tree, piece of farm equipment, oil well,
field-eating wires, etc.). Next to evaluate is..."A" for the approach. (I've
always [conservatively?] figured each field-edging obstruction [tree, fence,
whatever] makes 10 times its estimated height of the field unusable. The "R"
is for a rectangular approach; it's your insurance against landing downwind,
and insurance *for* choosing the best roundout spot, if the surface isn't uniform.

On 9/7/11 1:14 PM, BobW wrote:
On 9/6/2011 5:32 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.

You seem to have this aspect of weekend (U.S., club-based) soaring
accurately diagnosed, IMO. The time some (not all) folks want to BS is
*after* the day's soaring. *Then* is a great time to listen in and
occasionally prime the pump with ad-hoc questions of personal interest.
You'll soon figure out which pilots are genuinely interested in helping
you ascend to the next level by sharing their own experience(s); bug
'em, they'll be happy to share.

Its sad that folks are having trouble finding XC mentors. This has just
*never* been my experience. Flying out of Hollister CA there were
several instructors and private owners willing to mentor, and local fun
races organized with the intention that new XC pilots can tag along.
Thanks especially to Ramy Yanetz for arranging the race series,
mentoring XC pilots and acting as lead pilot in lead and follow XC
flights. I have tried to return the favor, taking pilots up in a two
seater for their early XC flights and helping with lead and follow. BASA
(Bay Area Soaring Associates) really encourages new members to ride XC
in their DG-1000 or DG-505 with experienced XC members then get them
into the Pegasus etc. Air Sailing organizes thermalling and cross
country camps that are well regarded. Williams Soaring has experienced
XC instructors that can help take you XC in a Duo Discus or do
lead-follow. And there are experienced XC private owners who fly out of
Williams who do very good lead/follow mentoring. Morgan at Avenal has a
Duo Discus and is using it to really encourage/mentor XC soaring. I know
Cindy Brickner does great XC instructing/mentoring. Soaring NV does as
well. But yes I still know that there are places where this does not
happen and its sad. My best advice is ask politely, show you really are
interested and have read up, are prepared (studied the areas, landout
options, etc. and can already thermal OK, have flown small local
triangles around the home gliderport, have a flight recorder or some
other way to record flights and SeeYou to analyze flights if possible,
etc.). Then if you really cannot find somebody to help I'd advise going
elsewhere or taking a vacation trip to somewhere you can get high
quality mentoring help.

Darryl

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.