Final Glide
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October 14, 2021
Prepare for Landing on Final Glide
As you approach your finish use the last 15 km or so to police up the cockpit for landing and get relief systems, oxygen tubing, and other stuff out of the way of the flap, spoilers and landing gear handles. Drink the rest of your water or sports drink, have a bite of something to eat and go through your checklist early - you
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July 29, 2021
1. Use the First Thermals
If you want to attempt 750km or farther, then you’ll need to be taking off on the first thermals. You may spend the first hour or two below 3000’, this may mean that you can fly an extra 50km farther at the start of the day, it’s certainly better than falling short this distance in the afternoon. So practice your skills in
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June 10, 2021
A few weeks ago I got back to my home airport after a long XC flight that got pretty difficult at the end with clouds knitting together into a solid (and lowering) overcast and little remaining sunlight on the ground. And, on getting back I was “rewarded” by the need to jump into a tow plane to aero retrieve 2 guys who landed out at different airports on their way back. Before I left I remarked to
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February 25, 2021
It happens all too often when we find a day where there are good soaring possibilities or life gets in the way which doesn’t allow for cross country. Too short a soaring window, restrictions on the sailplane because of club requirements, the wind is too strong, you’re not feeling up to it, etc.
Rather than just aimlessly flying around the local airfield, some of the below items can be practiced
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October 29, 2020
Final Glide Gone Wrong
These can be a roller coaster of emotions, at one moment everything is tracking nicely, then you start to get a sense that something isn't quite right, then you fall onto slope with no margin to spare, hope starts to set in, you start to tense up & tunnel vision becomes a factor, right now you need a miracle to get you home - you don't want to be here, this is a
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October 15, 2020
Final Glide Made Easy
An exciting, rewarding, sometimes nervous or anxious part of the flight. Done right, it is usually the first two! If the weather doesn’t go your way, you’ve been too aggressive in your attack or you’re just too late in the day, then it can definitely feel like the latter two. In this article, I aim to share my thoughts on when to start on final glide and how to do it
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March 19, 2020
Part 2 of 2
So you've had a good day out racing, or perhaps you haven't for whatever reason, there's ways to extend your days lead, or recover it with a strong transition to the final glide!
Matthew Scutter is always hard to catch, but this one particular year, he was gaining often 5 minutes on me just by nailing his final glides into my hometown airport, Kingaroy. I knew my final glides -
March 21, 2019
In previous articles, I talk about using an MC=6 for your final glide settings. Here are other considerations to make sure that you make it home using your flight computer.
At the 2018 WGC Mike and I flew our first flight together in the EB28 ASH25 with an electrical failure and we had to do our final glide by eyeball. So Day 1 was a ‘hope’ that this would all work. However, we slowly fell
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June 21, 2018
There are 3 outcomes: save a few minutes, conservative, or land-out (this could be replaced by a low very slow save). Being conservative typically costs a few minutes. Strong high days more because you might stop turning 40 miles from home. Miss timing your glide and landing short of the field will cost you a lot of points, so it is probably best to error towards conservative. The most challenging
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June 14, 2018
I can still remember clearly flying a WGC in an ASW-22. There were great clouds all the way home. My teammates ahead were finding good air. The ground crews were saying the clouds were making it all the way to the airport. But others were still climbing trying to get final glide. It was a calculated risk, but it looked like a great sky.
I headed off, leaving the gaggle I was with and passed