Pre-Flight Planning
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- October 16, 2024
Preparing and gaining local knowledge are key to a successful flight when flying at a new site. Every site has unique challenges, weather patterns, and local rules that may differ from those you’re accustomed to. Consulting experienced pilots is one of the best ways to ensure a safe and enjoyable flight. Here’s what you should consider and what questions to ask.
Understanding Local Weather Conditions
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- April 10, 2024
SkySight is an interactive gliding forecasting tool. It combines the latest modeling technologies with an intuitive user interface, to provide high-resolution soaring forecasts and powerful flight planning tools. Simon interviews SkySight's founder Matthew Scutter posing 5 questions on recent developments.
1. Are you excited for the next season and what are your plans?
”I’m very excited
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- December 13, 2023
In the realm of gliding, where the sky becomes both playground and canvas, the importance of hydration for pilots cannot be overstated. As gliders gracefully ride the currents and thermals, pilots must navigate not only the atmospheric conditions but also the internal dynamics of their bodies. Hydration emerges as a silent but critical companion, ensuring that pilots stay alert, focused, and in control
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- August 23, 2023
I’m writing to you from Uvalde, TX. What a wonderful country you all have, so far we’ve experienced lovely hospitality and conditions, plus of course much much more! One of the key factors to our success so far has been that we’ve had the right start strategy, though on one day I have to admit that we got it wrong, after starting right! In this article, I hope to talk about optimising your starts.
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- July 26, 2023
We start our soaring career with training flights, where the duration is rarely longer than an hour long and our early solo flights are usually less than 2hrs. Fortunately for these flights, being hydrated before take-off, having a good hat that won't scratch the canopy, and sunscreen on exposed body parts are all that you need. What will we need when flights start extending past these time frames
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- November 16, 2022
As we all very well know, as with anything in life, prior preparation prevents poor performance, knowing your preflight and landing checks goes into this category. Having a thorough knowledge of your country's checks is essential to a successful flight. If you’re just learning to fly, then some study and visualisation are required, not only will it save you time and money, it’ll show your instructor
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- May 27, 2020
Personal preparations continued (food, water, and booze!)
Food on the airfield and in-flight? The days are long when you are gliding, whether that be practicing of a weekend, or into your 10th day at a nationals, one thing for sure is that you must stay hydrated, without this, your body can’t even begin to perform at its optimum. So ensure that you have it nearby, preferably in a dedicated pre-launch
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- April 29, 2020
You've decided to enter a major competition, but where does one start with preparation? Naturally, the best place to start is with the pilot. The good thing about this, it can be done all the time.
For me, it's essential to realize that the focus should be put on the process of what makes a good flight, the skills & factors necessary to achieve the performance. Focus on putting all the little bits -
- April 08, 2020
Honest question: raise your hand if you’ve ever given the rudder wag for a takeoff then thought to yourself “did I put the spar pin in?”
Now, the harder question: when that happened, did you release or continue the takeoff and hope for the best?An Uncomfortable Truth
An old fighter pilot saying goes “It is better to die than to look bad, but it is possible to do both.”
While I don’t agree with it, -
- February 05, 2020
One of the key points to getting speed & points at a competition is judging your average speed for the day, versus the optimum part of the day for the task at hand. Why is this important & how do I do it?
Start Time
I'm not sure what you notice in the States, but typically in Australia, the last starters usually do the best. What else do I notice that people say?
"I think the optimum start time is