Get High, Stay High
When we soar across country we are inevitably treading a fine line. On one hand, we want to go as fast as possible, but on the other, we need to stay airborne! As time goes on & as our experience grows, there are times when we have trouble finding that balance. At first, we need all of our attention to simply stay afloat, then we realise to make any headway we need to push a bit harder. What happens then? Outlandings start occurring and that’s ok. This is not such a bad thing as we need to do this to find out where the limits are, and to always take it as a learning experience. After all, it’s a part of the game and is a good adventure in all reality. What can we learn in order to shorten this learning process though?
1/2 the Convection Height
Get high, stay high – you might have heard this one before! My general experience tells me that it is good to be above roughly half the height of convection. Let’s say, cloud base at 10,000 feet? Stay above 5,000 feet. Typically thermals will start being well-formed by this height and have their inertia all sorted out. This might sound very conservative, however, you’ll come to learn that as you descend into the lower layers, you will find it more difficult to find thermals, to centre them, the sink will start to seem more widespread and severe too. So it’s best to stay high, both for the lesser sink, but also for the higher TAS and view on the world, you have many more options up there!
So you want to stay in the top half of convection, but how do I do it? Let us talk about a cracking day because I like flying them. Eight to ten knots to 10,000’. You’ve passed up many climbs, you’re now at half convection and run into a five-knot climb, what do you do? Personally, after the season just been in Australia and what I learnt, it’s better to take that five-knot climb for a few thousand feet. If you do the sums, it won’t cost you much time against an eight-knot climb, but what it will do is save you from a three-knot grovel from down lower, which will cost you. You can not do this all day, nor take it to base, but that five-knot climb won’t actually cost you that much in the scheme of things, but it will keep you running at a nice cruise speed.
Choosing the Right Speed
No two days are the same, we certainly all know this – thankfully they are not, otherwise it’d get boring I suppose?! Typically, if the lift is close together you can afford to push harder, but if the good climbs are a long way apart, it will be worth your while to cruise a bit more slowly, so you can be more selective. If you want to increase your cross-country speed, then it is all about using the strongest climbs, so you need to fly at the right speed to get to the bottom of the next good climb. How do I achieve this? I pick my target cloud in the distance, adjust my MC to the average of my last four climbs, then reduce it by one-knot and analyse the base speed it has suggested. I then ask myself; can I get to the target cloud at that speed, or do I need to back it off a little? I will fly either one of these speeds because I always like to have a backup plan behind my target cloud – as you know, they don’t always work!
Safe Field Landing
One part of cross-country flying and making progress, is the ability to handle a low-level recovery. As your experience grows, it becomes easier to cope with getting low out on task. What must you always remember? The most important thing is to keep calm and keep thinking, there is always another thermal in front of you, you just have to find it. Many people in the early parts of their XC soaring career talk themselves into an outlanding. Me personally, I follow the above advice, then go over every trigger point before I finally put the wheel down & admit defeat. So, try hard to relax and remember that from launch height, it is quite unusual to land back without finding anything at all, this will ease your mind. I often also tell myself to stop racing, look outside the cockpit. Birds, dust, grass in the air, anything that might help. At the very least find a good paddock to use if all else fails. Try running along tree lines, scrub edges or any other irregularity that might trigger a thermal. Be positive in your search and keep moving along to the next possibility if you get no result. Most importantly, if all attempts do fail, make yourself adhere to a cut-off point, after which you concentrate solely on a safe field landing.
Adam Woolley was born into the gliding world, being the 3rd generation in his family. Going solo at 15, his thirst for efficiency in soaring flight & quest for a world championship title to his name has never wavered. One big passion is sharing his experiences & joy with other glider pilots all around the world. Adam is an airline pilot in Japan on the B767 & spends his off time chasing summer around the globe. He has now won 7 national Championships & represented Australia at 5 WGC's & 1 EGC.
