LAK-12 Question

Eric referred to aggression level being a predictor of landout probability.

It is possibly semantics but to me aggression equates to pushing the limits
without consideration. An approach that generally results in running out of
height and ideas at some point. Even in a contest you have to finish tasks if
you want to score well, so there is a careful cognitive process of assessment of
conditions, personal and equipment performance and acceptable risk of landout to
determine how hard you push. When racing I generally have little to lose so I
can take risks - the top positions in the pack will be more averse to a landout,
because that will demote them. The winning by not losing idea of George Moffatt.

Same applies to personal flying. We should be balancing risk and goals
analytically.

My club is averse to XC flying, it is very hard to get anyone to retrieve you.
Since not getting retrieved is at best inconvenient and could be bad for your
health, I have to fly conservatively most of the time.

74 flights and 145 hours in my Std Cirrus - 1:37 on a GOOOD day. One land out,
at another airfield. With a nearly two hour average - including the winch
launches at sunset for a hangar landing, you can see I am generally flying in XC
weather. But the conservative flying style means I have only a couple of 300+ km
flights. We have pilots who own 1:29 performance ships that have never landed
out in 10 years of flying. Clearly glider performance is not a predictor of
landout probability.

Conversely, flying in regional contests I can (and do) take a lot more risk in
terms of land out. My flying has improved, as a result. I really believe that
glider pilots should be encouraged to explore the performance capabilities of
their aircraft. I disagree with the aggressive word though, to me this is all
about developing judgement. In this context aggression would be referring to
Instrumental aggression (aggression directed towards obtaining some goal,
considered to be a learned response to a situation - care of wikipedia.)
I would prefer to think of setting a risk level - What is possible today, and
what risk of landout can I accept? As a measure - I tend to be below the half
way position in contests. With my conservative flying meaning I fail to exploit
the conditions and capabilities fully. I generally share this area with the
other mis-judgers, either too conservative or trying too hard. (aggressive if
you like)

Now. I know Eric is a very experienced XC pilot so some opinions please.

Should we be landing out frequently enough to account for luck only, or more?
Should we ever intentionally fly aggressively as per the definition of aggression?

BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

US use of term aggressive may be cultural, come to think about it...

Changing the subject, it's interesting that you have the same problem
we have of clubs not liking XC flights. There really seems to be two
types of glider pilots out there, at times!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

In article . com,
"kirk.stant" wrote:

BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

US use of term aggressive may be cultural, come to think about it...

Changing the subject, it's interesting that you have the same problem
we have of clubs not liking XC flights. There really seems to be two
types of glider pilots out there, at times!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

Man, I hate clubs that discourage x-country flying. Our little club,
Southern Eagles Soaring, flying out of LaGrange, Georgia, USA, whole
heartedly encourages x-country, badge, and contest flying. One of the
first flights of our "new" two-place glass bird resulted in a honest cow
pasture landout. Of course, we were not too thrilled about the towplane
landing out in a cow pasture...

Man, I hate clubs that discourage x-country flying. Our little club,
Southern Eagles Soaring, flying out of LaGrange, Georgia, USA, whole
heartedly encourages x-country, badge, and contest flying. One of the
first flights of our "new" two-place glass bird resulted in a honest cow
pasture landout. Of course, we were not too thrilled about the towplane
landing out in a cow pasture...- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm totally with Wally on XC flying with the club. I've been taking
students out for 100K or longer flights. They get a chance to see
things from a totally different prospective. Wally, you forgot to
mention that we were doing a triangle speed run for the second time
that day, after we had broken the Georgia record. It least this time
it was a 3,500 foot field, and it didn't even have any emu's!

kirk.stant wrote:
BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

US use of term aggressive may be cultural, come to think about it...

Changing the subject, it's interesting that you have the same problem
we have of clubs not liking XC flights. There really seems to be two
types of glider pilots out there, at times!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

Hi Kirk

As I said probably semantics.
Have been actively working on getting some of our members to fly a little
further. Limited success so far, but I am painfully persistent...

We definitely have a few kinds of glider pilots. Broadly the goldfish bowl types
and the XC types. Wild variation in other attributes within the groups. For
example the highest risk taker and most likely candidate for a BIG moment in a
glider - feels the danger represented by outlanding is too high to risk, and
flies very limited XC in very conservative mode. Then does low level aerobatics
and redline wormburners over the runway at home. One has to wonder.

Inadvertently changed my signature there when I re-installed my news reader -
have to fix it.

Bruce

"BG" wrote in message
...
kirk.stant wrote:
BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

US use of term aggressive may be cultural, come to think about it...

Changing the subject, it's interesting that you have the same problem
we have of clubs not liking XC flights. There really seems to be two
types of glider pilots out there, at times!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

Hi Kirk

As I said probably semantics.
Have been actively working on getting some of our members to fly a little
further. Limited success so far, but I am painfully persistent...

We definitely have a few kinds of glider pilots. Broadly the goldfish bowl
types and the XC types. Wild variation in other attributes within the
groups. For example the highest risk taker and most likely candidate for a
BIG moment in a glider - feels the danger represented by outlanding is too
high to risk, and flies very limited XC in very conservative mode. Then
does low level aerobatics and redline wormburners over the runway at home.
One has to wonder.

Inadvertently changed my signature there when I re-installed my news
reader - have to fix it.

Bruce

One way to describe agressiveness is that a conservative pilot will fly M=2
on a 4 knot day and an agressive pilot may fly M=8 on a 4 knot day. With
flight analysis programs feeding NMEA data to PDA glide software you can
determine the McCready setting the pilot is using. I see a lot of very
successful pilots flying aggressively that way. These guys succeed because
they're very good at finding their next source of lift.

Another way to describe a conservative XC pilot is that he will always have
two 'known-safe" landing spots within gliding range using half his published
max L/D corrected for headwind/tailwind.

I'm conservative both ways.

I'm not sure what scares pilots most about landouts. I find that light
airplane pilots with a lot of XC experience are less stressed than those who
have rarely landed away from their home field. It's probably just fear of
the unknown - what they don't know is that airportrs are pretty much alike.

It's also possible instructors, knowingly or otherwise, have taught landing
patterns using landmarks near the home field. The student instinctively
knows the "red barn" he uses to turn base won't be there at another airfield
and that scares him. It's really great if a student can get experience
landing at several different fields.

Bill Daniels

"Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote in message
. ..
I'm not sure what scares pilots most about landouts. I find that light
airplane pilots with a lot of XC experience are less stressed than those
who have rarely landed away from their home field. It's probably just
fear of the unknown - what they don't know is that airportrs are pretty
much alike.


It's not other airports that create the pucker factor, no worries there.
It's the obstacle in the field that you couldn't see until you were on final
that makes me conservative. I've only had 5 'aux vaches' landouts and on
one of them there was an obstacle I didn't see until I was turning final.
The Mosquito can make a nice steep approach and I'd conserved my
altitude/options so all ended well. That surprise on final did reinforce my
conservatism.

Bill Daniels wrote:

Bruce

One way to describe agressiveness is that a conservative pilot will fly M=2
on a 4 knot day and an agressive pilot may fly M=8 on a 4 knot day. With
flight analysis programs feeding NMEA data to PDA glide software you can
determine the McCready setting the pilot is using. I see a lot of very
successful pilots flying aggressively that way. These guys succeed because
they're very good at finding their next source of lift.

An interesting observation. My experience with flying in regional and
national contests around the country is different: the best pilots don't
cruise much faster than the mediocre pilots, but gain their speed from a
better choice of where to fly (more lift, less sink), and are much more
selective about the thermals they take. The mediocre pilot takes that 4
knot thermal Bill mentions, but the good pilot waits for (and finds) the
6 knot thermal.

Another way the good pilot gets that high cross-country speed is by
staying out of trouble, mostly by recognizing a poor situation ahead in
time to handle it easily. The mediocre pilot isn't aware of the problem
as early.

Note that I'm using "good" and "mediocre" instead of "aggressive" and
"conservative". A good pilot can fly much faster than a mediocre pilot
and still be flying more conservatively.

Bill, how do you tell what MC setting a pilot is using from looking at a
flight trace? Perhaps you meant "a fairly steady cruise speed equivalent
to an MC setting of ..."? The good pilots I've flown with don't follow
an MC setting, but cruise at a fairly constant speed.


--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
news:iQ40i.7879$XG1.4760@trndny07...
Bill, how do you tell what MC setting a pilot is using from looking at a
flight trace? Perhaps you meant "a fairly steady cruise speed equivalent
to an MC setting of ..."? The good pilots I've flown with don't follow an
MC setting, but cruise at a fairly constant speed.

Just change the McCready setting on the PDA software until the speed-to-fly
command matches what the pilot was doing. GPS_LOG can automatically set
McCready to the average of the last (n) thermals. If that results in a lot
of "slow down" indications, the pilot was overflying the conditions.

Actually, these pilot also fly at a pretty constant speed - 110 knots IAS.
(GPS_LOG also makes a pretty good guess at the IAS.)

Bill Daniels

kirk.stant wrote:
BG,

I think what we have here is a difference in our "english". US usage
of aggressive vs conservative. Different points on a range of
approaches to a task. Foolhardy or Impulsively, or even carelessly &
dangerously would be beyond aggressive on the scale.

I think of aggressive when I tilt the balance of rewards vs risk in
the direction of risk (in this case, landing out, not damage/injury).
Conservative is avoiding the risk of landing out at any cost, usually
due to logistics of a retrieve.

Good catch, Kirk. Another way to put it when talking about doing
something: "conservatively" implies the outcome is very predictable;
"aggressively" implies it is moderately predictable; foolhardy,
impulsively, etc implies the outcome can be anything.

BG is right that we balance the risks (generally a landout) and costs
(money, time, pleasure) against our goals for each flight. For example,
I believe:

-Many pilots are attracted to contests because the retrieve process is
already set up and they are expected to fly aggressively. It frees them
from the usual concerns of organizing a retrieve and the potential
embarrassment of landing out.

-Some pilots are attracted to 30:1 gliders because they can fly them
aggressively and still be retrieved easily, cheaply, and quickly. Look
at some of the 1-26 pilots who are very aggressive in their flying and
make great flights, but with manageable retrieves; put the same pilot in
a 25 meter glider and it'd take days to retrieve them - not practical or
fun for a lot of pilots.

-A big attraction of a motorglider is it allows a pilot to fly
aggressively on every flight, but enjoy the conservative pilot's
outcome: home in time for beer and pizza!

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org