look outside
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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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- June 01, 2022
One of the best things that can happen to us whilst we are climbing, is to be joined by another glider. Better again if it’s a similar type as the one we are flying, and a pilot of a similar or better standard than ourselves. This rings true when both pilots know how to take advantage of one another, and can see each other all the time. Why is this true? Because we are able to compare our rate of
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- June 23, 2021
My Club Safety Committee spent a lot of time this week talking about "Situational Awareness" and the loss of it. But what exactly is "Situational Awareness" ("SA") anyway? How do you get it? How do you lose it? How do you know if you have lost it? How do you get it back? It is an elusive matter and one that is hard to write about. The part of our brain that helps us maintain multi-faceted
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- October 23, 2019
Last week I talked about where to look when thermalling, but the main emphasis was on scanning and using the nose as your primary instrument. This week will be an emphasis on how to incorporate that and not trade paint with anyone. I know everyone’s favorite racing movie is Days of Thunder, thankfully car racing is not like racing gliders, and there should be no rubbin, no bumping, no nudging, no trading
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- June 12, 2019
Happy Fathers Day.
To celebrate Fathers Day, I want to share what I learned from my Father. He soloed in gliders at 15 and has accumulated a lot of hours since then. I bounced around with instructors before I soloed at 14, but I did my most of my power instructing with him in the family Cessna 180, and later in my Cessna 140 I rebuilt.
Smooth
Being smooth on the controls. When my brother and I practice
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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