What are Your Soaring Strengths and Weaknesses?

It is really hard to improve if you do not know what you need to focus on and what you do not. So you need to start with a list of strengths and weaknesses. Once you pinpoint what you need to focus your attention on, you can make a plan to move those weaknesses to the strengths list.

It might not feel like you have a strength but I am sure you do. You might say you are good on strong days or on days with clouds. Personally I am better on cloudless days. Most of my days at home are in the blue. So I have more of a tendency to chase cloudstreets or get fooled by the "grass is greener on the other side" and try the next cloudstreet over.

How do you handle pressure? This could be a strength. Maybe you can handle the stress of preparing for a landout. Once you have a number of landouts they slowly get not as terrifying as your first one. That is not to say they do not raise the blood pressure at all. But getting low might not get you to crumble as it would when you have more experience.

What about when the conditions get weak? Can you still race? It is one thing to be able to stay up in weak conditions. However, some people are still able to race and do very well in weak conditions. I am thinking UK pilots here... One way to practice is to fly on those weak days, but not only fly, set a small task and try and race on those weak days. Weak days are generally when contests are won or lost, and generally when pilots land out.

Final glides are a common weakness of pilots. There are 2 elements to them in a contest. The first one being to finish at a certain height. It is easy to practice this twice on each flight. The first finish is to a higher altitude where you can climb back out. Then you pick another turnpoint and use it as the last turn and final glide back home to a normal finish height. Finishing on time on a timed task, this has to be practiced so you can get used to using your computer, I remember with GlideNav I would always calculate on 7min overtime to finish on-time. Finishing early is like giving away points.

A lot of pilots claim their weakness is the rules and not understanding them. However when you ask if they have read them the common answer is no...

 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.