flarm
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August 11, 2022
We’re taught from our very first lesson about scanning for other gliders, that maintaining a scan is super important when studying clouds, or the climb rate of turning gliders ahead. Having your head buried high into a cloud for 5-10 seconds straight, studying the optimum climb point or path is far too long. Why? Everyone else is doing the same, so have a good look, then start your scanning
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April 11, 2019
Below are some photos courtesy of a Facebook page called ‘Crap Instrument Panels’.
As technology advances, you sometimes need to start over with a better instrument panel and not just continually add instruments. Visibility and electronic distractions can be equally bad.
Portable FLARM
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August 09, 2018
This has been the phrase used repeatedly by the contest organizers. Despite that, on Day 8 we had someone not looking out. I am not here to speculate what happened. You can download the IGC files and make your own assessment of what happened. What I will say is that the entering glider impacted the thermalling glider and had not seen him. Both gliders flew back to the airport and had very minor damage.
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June 07, 2018
Going into the last day at the 2010 WGC I was in the top 10. Ron Tabery and I were flying very well together and our scores proved it. It was pre-start and probably 20 Minutes before our thought about start time. I was on the top of the gaggle, let’s say 500 ft below cloudbase... but I was on-top and it was glorious. Ron was right below me and all we needed to do was wait. However, the entire open
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March 29, 2018
Dick Johnson got this to work for him much better than I did. Charlie Spratt told me that this was a tactic he saw work time and time again in Hobbs and Uvalde when there was a big storm in the forecast. The idea behind this is a large storm is going to shut down a turnpoint at some point during the day. It could even develop at the home airport. Leaving early could get you in and out of the turnpoint