On Sat, 03 Nov 2018 08:37:12 -0700, Papa3 wrote:

Several good posts, but I think Per covers most of them in one. FWIW, I
ran a racing camp for a couple of years where we had anywhere from 10-15
pairs trying at the same time. Out of that, maybe 20% of the pairs were
able to pull off anything like a successful lead/follow. Out of all the
different failure modes, the two biggest ones we

- Leader saying "I'll head out for that next cloud 7 miles out and let
you know". Once you're more than a 1/2 mile apart, you're no longer
flying the same flight.

- Followers who refuse to follow. I distinctly remember being at 7,000
feet on a beautiful day 10 miles from the home airport and my follower
refused to pass up even a half knot as we went back to take a start.
He simply wasn't ready to commit to XC at any level.

I would say that briefing the mission and especially the key parameters
(hard deck, maximum separation, leader willing to pull the boards,
appetite for landing out) needs to be done on the ground for a solid
20-30 minutes before you start flying.

P3



On Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 6:49:58 AM UTC-4, Per Carlin wrote:
I would say that Lead & Follow has to be performed as close as possible
between the leader and the followers. Absolutely not more than within
eyesight and therefore is there no need of any technical devices more
than a radio. In worst case is a GPS with some fixed turning points
enough to communicate distance and bearing to close the separation.

What happens if the distance becomes to big (10-15km) and I as leader
finds out a good climb? I will take it and most likely leave it until
the followers are there, they will only get the information of where it
was as good climb, not if it still there and how to center it. They
will stay for a while and struggle, perhaps find it a go to could base
and in worst case abandon it and follow me on the lows. At the next
thermal I find will the separation be even bigger and the follow & lead
will fail unless I pull the brake and take away 500m+ in height.

Lead & follow has to be performed in a closer configuration, max 2-3km
in distance and ~100m in height. If the separation becomes bigger do
the leader have a few options:
- To try a weak thermal which I might not have taken when alone, to
give the followers the time to catch up - Stay at could base to wait
until the followers has the same height until leaving - Pull the brake
to get to the same height and together make a save from the lows - The
follow have to follow all the time. Any kind of sidetrack will make the
sepperation bigger.

To a surprise for many can this be performed with quite big differences
in glider performance as long as the wing load are in the same range.

This art of soaring is not easy, it has to be performed with discipline
and with respect to all in the team. The leader has the respect that
the followers are not equally skilled in finding and centering thermals
and the followers has to dare to follow the leader into unknow areas
(without compromising the safety). It is also essential to prior the
flight agree on how to communicate on the radio, misunderstandings are
not helping when the situation becomes stressed.

Do you introduce your new pilots to flying mini-triangles when they're
getting ready[*] to go XC?

I found out about mini-triangles by word of mouth when I'd been solo
about 6 months and found that learning to fly them was a great help. As
an example, one I used a lot was a 43km/25mile triangle roughly centred
on our airfield and with its furthest point (one of the turnpoints) 10.5
km/6.5 miles from the field. Thats close enough to home to avoid worrying
a new pilot while just about big enough (longest leg is 16km/10miles) to
introduce them to the joys of flying a task while carrying a logger and,
preferably, a navigation system as well, especially if the turnpoints can
be put into their kit.

And of course you can use smaller triangles or squares if you want to
keep your fledglings within, say, 5 miles of home.


I think a new pilot can learn a lot from flying mini-triangles by
themselves, especially if they keep a record of times/speeds/weather/
flight logs so they can analyse their flights and chart their own
progress. Flying this sort of minitask makes progress toward the bronze
badge and XC endorsement rather more interesting than just noodling
around near the airfield.

FWIW, my club encourages new pilots to work on getting their bronze badge
as soon as they're flying single seaters (bronze requires 50 solo flights
including one and a two hour flights, all flown locally plus a written
quiz and a flying tests at the end of it ) and are reminded that Silver
height gain and duration can be flown as part of the 50 flights. Then, as
soon as a pilot has the Bronze XC add-on (navigation, field picking and
land-out practice, all done in a motor glider) they're readt to go for
silver distance.
[*] IOW, the new pilot can find and use thermals but doesn't yet have the
skills to fly to a turnpoint, let alone to do that at a reasonable speed.
Its also likely that he is not used to carrying a logger or using a map
or GPS system.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org