Boring booming days

I fly in New England and staying up in the air is challenging on the majority of "flyable days". Every so often, we get a booming day (like today) and I commonly end up saying (and I hear other pilots saying), "It was so easy to stay up, I got bored."

So what happens when a pilot who is used to scrapping for lift goes to the land of big, strong, and reliable thermals? Does the pilot get bored? Or does the pilot find other challenges to keep things interesting (like flying 300 km tasks and landing out on top of mountains).

On Thursday, September 5, 2013 7:04:34 PM UTC-4, son_of_flubber wrote:
I fly in New England and staying up in the air is challenging on the majority of "flyable days". Every so often, we get a booming day (like today) and I commonly end up saying (and I hear other pilots saying), "It was so easy to stay up, I got bored." So what happens when a pilot who is used to scrapping for lift goes to the land of big, strong, and reliable thermals? Does the pilot get bored? Or does the pilot find other challenges to keep things interesting (like flying 300 km tasks and landing out on top of mountains).

We go places
UH

Well, we try not to land on top of the mountains, but 300K tasks are rather
routine here in New Mexico. So we just try to fly farther...


"son_of_flubber" wrote in message
...
I fly in New England and staying up in the air is challenging on the
majority of "flyable days". Every so often, we get a booming day (like
today) and I commonly end up saying (and I hear other pilots saying), "It
was so easy to stay up, I got bored."

So what happens when a pilot who is used to scrapping for lift goes to the
land of big, strong, and reliable thermals? Does the pilot get bored? Or
does the pilot find other challenges to keep things interesting (like flying
300 km tasks and landing out on top of mountains).

wrote, On 9/5/2013 4:20 PM:
On Thursday, September 5, 2013 7:04:34 PM UTC-4, son_of_flubber
wrote:
I fly in New England and staying up in the air is challenging on
the majority of "flyable days". Every so often, we get a booming
day (like today) and I commonly end up saying (and I hear other
pilots saying), "It was so easy to stay up, I got bored." So what
happens when a pilot who is used to scrapping for lift goes to the
land of big, strong, and reliable thermals? Does the pilot get
bored? Or does the pilot find other challenges to keep things
interesting (like flying 300 km tasks and landing out on top of
mountains).

We go places UH

.... and we keep going until we think we might not make it back, then we
turn around and try to get back!

If you get bored, it's because your didn't fly far enough away from
home. You have a good excuse, though: you get the good days so
infrequently, you don't realize how far "far enough" it.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

On Thursday, September 5, 2013 5:04:34 PM UTC-6, son_of_flubber wrote:
I fly in New England and staying up in the air is challenging on the majority of "flyable days". Every so often, we get a booming day (like today) and I commonly end up saying (and I hear other pilots saying), "It was so easy to stay up, I got bored."



So what happens when a pilot who is used to scrapping for lift goes to the land of big, strong, and reliable thermals? Does the pilot get bored? Or does the pilot find other challenges to keep things interesting (like flying 300 km tasks and landing out on top of mountains).

Being able to fly XC in great weather is one of the great joys of soaring. Returning home at the end of the day is the icing on the cake.

On Thursday, September 5, 2013 7:41:03 PM UTC-4, Eric Greenwell wrote:

If you get bored, it's because your didn't fly far enough away from

home.

I did actually fly farther and for longer today than I ever have before... so I guess I'm good. Come to think of it, I only got bored when I got back near the airport after crossing over an upwind ridge.

Keep trying to fly further than you ever have before. One day you may find
you've flown further than anybody in your state/country/the World has
before - that's called "A Record."

At 00:04 06 September 2013, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Thursday, September 5, 2013 7:41:03 PM UTC-4, Eric Greenwell wrote:

If you get bored, it's because your didn't fly far enough away from

home.

I did actually fly farther and for longer today than I ever have
before...
so I guess I'm good. Come to think of it, I only got bored when I got
back
near the airport after crossing over an upwind ridge.

On Thursday, September 5, 2013 8:04:22 PM UTC-4, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Thursday, September 5, 2013 7:41:03 PM UTC-4, Eric Greenwell wrote:



If you get bored, it's because your didn't fly far enough away from



home.



I did actually fly farther and for longer today than I ever have before... so I guess I'm good. Come to think of it, I only got bored when I got back near the airport after crossing over an upwind ridge.

if you get bored, you're doing it wrong.

First think you did to do is learn how to really tighten your seat belts. On my first flight at Moriarity after flying in the east, my head almost went thru the canopy when I hit the first big thermal at 110 kts.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...S&sc=1&sp=2013