flarm
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- December 11, 2024
Upon driving home from the airfield, after all the post-flight socializing, I was finally able to let my brain rest & digest the day. Often, I write on my gliding page straight away with raw emotions, but often, the drive home is where I really reflect upon the day. I realised two things: I had a great flight up to the 2nd turnpoint (approx 145kph & 6kt averages, no major mistakes*1). What I noticed
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- August 10, 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 habits
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- April 10, 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
One reader asked about how Portable FLARM interfered with forward visibility. It really depends on your glider and
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- August 08, 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 06, 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 28, 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