sailplane racing
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April 13, 2023
The gliders we now fly are highly sophisticated and are able to travel huge distances and speeds in excess of 250kph using only Earth's natural energies. These energies are generated by the sun, wind, and topography. As a glider is always sinking towards the Earth, we as pilots seek out areas where the airmass is moving upwards, this enables us to gain our energy through height which we can
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December 28, 2017
I am not sure how many of you watched the Pan-Americans in early Dec but the US team blog can be found here. It was in Argentina and as expected for any international contest the weather was less than stellar. They had 2 1000point days in 7 flying days for the 15-meter class.
One might say, 'Boy am I glad I did not travel -
December 21, 2017
It does not take extra Risks to Race. I hear from people all the time that say they would never race because of the additional risk involved. I would not expect my newly soloed student to get away with a low climb that I might do flying solo or at a contest. There are times when a low climb is not safe and I would not attempt it. There are times when you race on a day you normally would not have gone -
June 08, 2017
Don't land out, that definitely defines the line of pushing too hard. You can see on the graph above (graph from @SouthAfricanGlidingTeam ) how devastating one bad day can be.
My classic lawn darting experience was in 2005 at the Standard Class Nationals. The last few days placing were 3rd, 5th, 2nd, a 1st.....Then I didn't even make it 20miles....I had to take a relight that day, and did not -
April 13, 2017
I am not referring to flying a task in wave at a mountain site where you would plan to race in wave. Let's start by thinking about it from a pre-start and work our way around the course.
In a previous article I talked about recognizing wave on task and how I used it to get the last climb of the day and made it home, -
February 09, 2017
Psychology to Stay in the Race.
The world championships just wrapped up. Two gliders (JS-3) were air-freighted and had just started test flights 1 month before the start of the contest. Their social media buzz was strong and got a lot of people wondering how much better it was going to be. Five (Ventus 3) were brand new and had not really been raced yet. Three wings (EB-29R) were flying in
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November 17, 2016
You see a hill ahead, as you approach the bottom of it you downshift to keep the RPM high so you can maintain your speed up the hill. You do not wait until you are rapidly slowing down and the accelerator is floored before downshifting.
Do you shift gears while soaring? You can see a dissipating sky ahead, you can stop and take a weaker climb now, so you can avoid an even weaker climb ahead