Paging glider pilots with ASEL

Greg Bockelman said:
Step on the knot. Gonna have to remember that.
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We took a little sticky paper dot or a white pen and made a "ball" just above the knot. When coordinated the string goes right over the dot, if not step on the ball.

Tips for the new glider pilot:
Stay hydrated, that canopy is gonna warm up the cockpit in the summer. Quickest way to airsickness is an overheated, dehydrated pilot or passenger flying in tight little circles.

Take the button off the top of your hat (a good bounce could send that button into the canopy and crack it) or get the obligatory bucket hat. They are like epaulets for glider pilots...

Make every landing a spot landing, one day it might count for something.
 
Seanaldinho said:
Tips for the new glider pilot:

Take the button off the top of your hat (a good bounce could send that button into the canopy and dent your skull) or get the obligatory bucket hat. They are like epaulets for glider pilots...
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FTFY. Don't ask me how I know. ;)
 
The “pretend the air brake is the throttle” and “step on the knot” tips worked fabulously for me.

He would have solod me already but I’m not yet comfortable with the final roll of the stop in the environment I’m training in. People, gliders, tow planes, posts sticking out of the ground......
 
As someone who transitioned from power to glider the yaw string memory aid that made the most sense to me was simply "put the tail behind the yaw string", I knew how to move the tail where I wanted it, I was just having trouble interpreting that to step on which pedal based on what the yaw string was telling me.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
Soloed today. Was a crap day, but that just meant nobody else wanted the plane. Did a short 3000 foot tow, caught a little bit of zero sink, but overcast and no thermals around. Still was a blast. I think I was more nervous than on my asel solo. I was real worried I wouldn’t make it back. Lol
 
Congratulations. How many flights/hours?
 
Salty said:
6 solo flights now. Did a few in a single seater today. Still can’t find the thermals very well, but the rest is coming along nicely.
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Finding thermals is a bit like fishing; many days the fishing seems tough, they aren’t biting and when you get one,they are hard to keep on. Other days they are all over the place, mostly nice ones and you spend the day throwing them back so you can fight another one.

Then you go up with a pro and discover she found the first thermal before the rope was tight by spotting a climbing hawk. Then she asked why you didn’t turn back to the one that lifted your wing just before release.... or the one lifting your other wing right now?

After you land and tie the club ships down, 2 guys do a pass down the runway leaving contrails. They pull up into the pattern, drop the gear and land by rolling right up to their empty trailer cradles, “it was a good day... we did the 500km task declared but should have gone for 750km, damn!”

...and you didn’t know their were 10lb bass anywhere in NJ.


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Best advice I got was to break the sky into thirds. Top third, use the sky to find thermals. Cumulus clouds being the clue, but you have to learn how to know if the cloud is forming (good) or dissipating (bad). Basic concept - if you are high, fly the sky. Middle third, mix of ground and sky. In addition to clouds, look for thermal triggers; parking lots, plowed fields, tops of hills etc. Bottom third, ignore the clouds, look for ground triggers and look for surface thermal markers. Those can be swirls in the grass or on water. If you are over an area that has multiple wind markers, if they are pointing towards each other, that can be a clue as the thermal will be somewhere in the middle. Lastly always have a plan on where you are going to land if you don't get up.

In all of those cases; birds, other gliders, dust devils, trash bags, leaves etc are all good markers. Lastly, you will develop a feel for when you are near one and how to search in close.

And as @Bill Watson points out, no matter how good you get, someone will totally out fly you and get up on a day where you couldn't find anything.

I love the mind game of thermal XC.
 
Around here we generally start looking for the buzzards, nature's sailplanes, as markers.

I took my nephew out for a fun flight in a 172 on a hot day last summer. Lots of good lift that day so it was fun for him to get firsthand experience with a basic lesson of "hot air rises". We were trimmed well and pretty much just puttering around at about 1500 AGL. We'd get some lift, climb, then eventually get back to where we started. I didn't have to really search out the thermals or look for markers, they were all over that day. When we flew over a pretty good sized lake, we descended until we reached the other side and then climbed again. There was even a spot on the edge of the lake where one wing lifted when we were on the edge of the different air masses. Good times.
 
Matthew said:
Around here we generally start looking for the buzzards, nature's sailplanes, as markers.
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Buzzards are good markers, no doubt.

When I was racing, we very much were into a bird thermaling hierarchy, in which buzzards were at the bottom. The good part is that they very visible and like to gaggle up, but they don’t search very aggressively.

Birds of prey are generally better. They are moving and searching and seem to aggressively try to center up and optimize their climbs. They’ll stay in a thermal with you as well.

Swifts and Swallows are the best. Hard to see but they do fly high and when they do, they are feeding. The best food seems to be in the best lift and they are generally in it or moving to it.

Making a choice between a gaggle of Buzzards and a gaggle of swifts - turn towards the swifts and see if you can keep up.

God, I love soaring!


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The buzzards at the glider club airport like to come out after the mower - they snack on whatever rabbits or snakes got run over.

The barn swallows like to ride the ridge lift at the terminal building. They are pretty fun to watch.

Ridge soaring 1- small.jpg

Ridge soaring 2 - small.jpg

Flight School - small.jpg
 
Bill Watson said:
Finding thermals is a bit like fishing; many days the fishing seems tough, they aren’t biting and when you get one,they are hard to keep on. Other days they are all over the place, mostly nice ones and you spend the day throwing them back so you can fight another one.

Then you go up with a pro and discover she found the first thermal before the rope was tight by spotting a climbing hawk. Then she asked why you didn’t turn back to the one that lifted your wing just before release.... or the one lifting your other wing right now?

After you land and tie the club ships down, 2 guys do a pass down the runway leaving contrails. They pull up into the pattern, drop the gear and land by rolling right up to their empty trailer cradles, “it was a good day... we did the 500km task declared but should have gone for 750km, damn!”

...and you didn’t know their were 10lb bass anywhere in NJ.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
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The first coupla’ bowling balls that hit the bottom of the fuselage are a little startling on the REALLY good soaring days.:cool:
 
Waiting for the tow plane to come back and I’m going up!
 
Yowza! Two flights in an s126. Clung on for dear life to get 42 minutes out of the first tow to 3000, the second tow I climbed to the cloud deck at 3800 and got tired after an hour and came back down. Dropped down to 1500 at one point about 30 min in but clawed my way back up to 3000 again after that. Of course, in the pattern I was still getting lift with full spoilers in......
 
One other thought. There is some good flight analysis software that can give you a good opportunity to visualize what was happening during your flight. “See you” is one. You need to be able to download gps and vario. It can really show where the core of the thermal is compared to where you thought it was. If you find yourself Climbing hard for half a circle then sinking in the other side for example, it’s likely you need to adjust your circle a bit. It will show up clearly in the software.
 
Salty said:
So, I joined a glider club today and took my first hour of instruction.

Looking for tips for the transition. My instructor is glider only so he may not have the insights a private pilot would.

One thing is confusing me already though. When thermalling, we were cross controlled not coordinated. The string was significantly on the side towards the turn with lots of rudder and opposite aileron to prevent over banking. I thought the string was supposed to be centered. How do you know how much rudder to use (he was using nearly full rudder)? It was a very small thermal so we were making a very steep turn. I’ll ask him this question next time, we didn’t have time for a debrief after the flight.
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Unless he hasn't worked with transition students before he probably has all the insights he needs. That is that you need to forget all your power insights. Have fun
 
luvflyin said:
Unless he hasn't worked with transition students before he probably has all the insights he needs. That is that you need to forget all your power insights. Have fun
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Welcome to 5 months ago! Lol. Thanks!
 
PaulS said:
Congrats Salty, all in how long, calendar time and hours, if you don't mind me asking?
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Four months, 20 hours, 44 tows.
 
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Only thing I screwed up was one landing was a short a hundred feet or so, but the other two were right in the same spot I launched, one of which was the rope break. I was very well prepared for the oral, I didn’t have to look anything up and was able to answer everything without a lot of thought.
 
The comercial ops (not clubs) for adding the rating - anyone have a recomendation for a mid-atlantic states operation? I'm in Maryland, and would like to look into it for this summer. . .
 
Sundancer said:
The comercial ops (not clubs) for adding the rating - anyone have a recomendation for a mid-atlantic states operation? I'm in Maryland, and would like to look into it for this summer. . .
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Chillowee I think. Sarah runs the school.

Www.ssa.org. Where to fly.
 
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