Not Climbing Well?
The sailplane generally climbs better at a slightly slower speed and shallower bank angle then it does at high speed and steep bank angle.
Unless you are Ron Tabery you cannot float around at a shallow bank angle with one wingtip in the thermal and climb. I have tried repeatedly to follow and just watched him climb away. So it is going to require a good bank angle, lets say between 30-45 degrees.
What I see a lot of is 60 degree and 70knts...That is not going to climb well at all. When I was flying with George Lee, if we noticed we were flying a little faster then normal we would shallow the bank angle vs flying that extra 5knts.
Another issue I see with students when thermalling they stop looking ahead over the instrument panel and generally start looking down towards the wingtip. Then the airspeed starts to fluctuate (generally increase) as the nose bobs along. The changing airspeed results in a changing turn radius and quickly un-centers us.
There was an article in Soaring Magazine (Oct 2004), which can be found in the archives under Dick Johnson "Holighaus way". He talks about thermalling in a gentle slip. For my purposes with students, thermalling in a skid is bad. Therefore I have them lean towards a slipping turn.
My favorite is when we get other gliders in our thermal and the student forgets about flying their own glider. My favorite example of this was a pre-solo student the lesson after our spin training (done in a 2-32). We were joined by a 1-26 about 500ft above us and slightly ahead. The 1-26 was flying a little slower and a little tighter so as we turned the 1-26 slowly gained ahead and eventually was catching us from behind. The student was looking over his shoulder (up and back) he was unconsciously pulling back on the stick and pushing with his inside foot. The 2-33 got about half way through one rotation before he looked forward again, by the time we completed 1 rotation he had realized what was happening and quickly recovered.
Work on a good scan. Looking outside at the horizon, bank angle, traffic, ASI, Vario, centering, drift, wisps, hydration, determine the trigger of this thermal, and of course looking for your next climb.
I set up a scan similar to instrument flying where the looking outside at the horizon is my primary instrument.
Garret Willat holds a flight instructor rating with over 8000 hours in sailplanes. His parents have owned Sky Sailing Inc. since 1979. He started instructing the day after his 18th birthday. Since then, Garret has represented the US Junior team in 2003 and 2005. He graduated from Embry-Riddle with a bachelor's degree in Professional Aeronautics. Garret represented the US Open Class team in 2008 and 2010 and the Club Class team in 2014. Garret has won 3 US National Championships.
