In article
,
" wrote:

On Jul 3, 7:34*am, Mike Ash wrote:

To answer your last question, it's a combination of luck and skill.
There is *not* always some way to gain altitude. Sometimes you just
strike out and cannot stay up. But on a good day, a pilot with
reasonable skill has a good enough chance to find something before he
reaches the ground that he can stay aloft for a long time.

Mike,

Wouldn't you agree a good "preflight" would reduce or even eliminate
the luck factor?

It will certainly give you a good idea of what to expect. Whether that
counts as reducing luck or simply adjusting expectations, well, that's
kind of a philosophical question I suppose. No doubt it's essential for
maximizing your enjoyment.

Like you said, there are not always some way to gain altitude (no
thermals and no winds) but Mx from other posts and even here doesn't
seem to understand the preparation of flight part which reduces that
luck factor in my eyes exponentially.

I always check soaring forecasts multiple times over the days leading up
to a glider flight, so I have a good idea what conditions will be like.
This allows me to plan the rest of the flight accordingly (such as I
can) and adapt to how things will be. However, you can never be 100%
sure, and sometimes you end up in a strange field far from home despite
all your preparation. (Sometimes you do it on purpose, of course.)

Even I know in my student infancy in the flats of MS that gliding
activities in December will be severely hampered by winter :-)

Out here where we have mountains, winter flying can be the best kind of
flying, actually. We get ridge and wave lift all throughout the winter,
and those are the kinds of lift where people set records.

But overall your point is correct; weather is highly variable, and if
you don't check it beforehand, your flight will probably not be very fun
or very long.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon