Fear of flying cross country

I would like to fly more cross country flights but have to admit I
usually come up with a list of excuses for not going on any particular
day. The weather is never good enough, or I have a dinner engagement,
or my battery seems low, or something. Some of this is a general
concern about personal injury, but I think I am also just afraid of
landing out and having to put up with the inconvenience of a retrieve
and getting criticism from other pilots in my club. (I did some damage
to my glider on a land out last year and I have lost a lot of
confidence.) I thought I would get over this, but have not so far.
Has anybody else been through a period like this, and if so, how did
you work it out?

thanks,

Steve

On Jun 27, 2:08 pm, 126Driver wrote:
I would like to fly more cross country flights but have to admit I
usually come up with a list of excuses for not going on any particular
day. The weather is never good enough, or I have a dinner engagement,
or my battery seems low, or something. Some of this is a general
concern about personal injury, but I think I am also just afraid of
landing out and having to put up with the inconvenience of a retrieve
and getting criticism from other pilots in my club. (I did some damage
to my glider on a land out last year and I have lost a lot of
confidence.) I thought I would get over this, but have not so far.
Has anybody else been through a period like this, and if so, how did
you work it out?


Some suggestions:

xc dual. This depends where you are; in my club (Chicago) it's as
simple as signing up the duo discus, grabbing an instructor or xc
pilot and going. Travel to a site with a good xc instruction program
will be well worth the substantial amount of money involved.

Welcome to xc flying. It's all about diagnosing your problems,
figuring out the solution, then practicing it. Clearly, you've figured
out that excessive fear due to your last landout is the problem. Now,
go to work on making decisions using the facts, not feelings about it.
It will take determined practice to recognize illogical fear (as
distinguished from perfectly logical fear) and ignoring it. "Getting
back on the horse" is important. Habituation is the answer. All of us
have had to wrestle with this kind of thing.

Why was there damage? Something else obviously went wrong that needs
fixing. When you fix that, you'll get confidence again. Did you leave
field choice until too late? Again, some dual is a good idea. Just
because everybody else learned xc alone with the map in one hand and
terror in the heart is no reason to keep doing it this way!

There is no such thing as cross-country flying, there is only local
flying to different landing sponts. Plan your cross-country flights so
you know you're always in safe landing zone, then say out loud "I'm
local to x", committing to landing at x if the need arises. Drive the
route and pick specific fields if that's what it takes so you are
really logically comfortable with landing.

If your club really will give you criticism for a well-flown and
planned landout on a reasonable cross-country day, change clubs! This
is not only unhelpful, it's unsafe. Lots of accidents have happened
because people stretched a glide back to the airport in fear of
getting yelled at. If you don't land out occasionally, (especially in
a 126!) you're not trying.

Don't wait forever for "really good days." You only get better at it
if you fly xc anytime you can reliably stay up.

John Cochrane BB

Everything John said...

Plan to land out on your next flight. Find a suitable field from the
ground, walk it, measure it, then go flying. At the end of the
(perhaps local) flight, land there. Of course, you'll need to line up
a crew, prepare the trailer, etc.

I flew a 1-26, long, long ago and I remember that every flight was
likely to end up with a landing not exactly where I had planned. That
was a big part of the fun of flying the ship - all the friends needed
to support me and share the ship so we could all crew for each other.

Work on your spot landing technique. If you can't get stopped EVERY
time within 5' of a predetermined spot that you choose prior to
turning final, if flying at the home airport, then you need some dual
instruction to determine why. At our club we had a requirement to
land over a barrier, then get stopped within 500' prior to taking the
1-26 XC. The barrier was a pair of 16' poles with a flag banner
stretched between them. The length was about 100' and a weak link was
placed in the flag line so it would break easily if snagged by the
glider.

Here's a YouTube video posted recently of a 1-26 landing at a model
airplane field that shows a well executed landing in a small field:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g7lUZ506Zw

-Tom

5Z wrote:
Work on your spot landing technique. If you can't get stopped EVERY
time within 5' of a predetermined spot that you choose prior to
turning final, if flying at the home airport, then you need some dual
instruction to determine why.

I've heard other people suggest this, and I have to disagree. In my
opinion, what is important is consistently and controllably touching
down within 5 or 10 feet of a predetermined spot (plus having some
energy to spare, if you see something you don't like on final). During
an actual off field landing there are all kinds of ways one can stop,
but the chances of damage are minimized if you take advantage of as much
of the available length as you can.

At our club we had a requirement to
land over a barrier, then get stopped within 500' prior to taking the
1-26 XC.

A reasonable test, if properly organized, but not something to do on a
day to day basis...

Marc

Marc Ramsey wrote:

At our club we had a requirement to
land over a barrier, then get stopped within 500' prior to taking the
1-26 XC.

A reasonable test, if properly organized, but not something to do on a
day to day basis.


Why not?

I think we should do something similar, informally, on every
landing, where doing so does not conflict with other operational
requirements. If we don't set a standard of some sort for every
takeoff, every flight, every landing--how do we know what we can do,
whether we're making any progress, or even maintaining our skills?
After all, not having confidence in our abilities results in a
reluctance to fly XC.

Your suggestion that we focus on the touchdown point is very
important, but it is just part of the challenge. Getting stopped at
a certain point helps us to determine just how good a job we've done
of choosing the _right_ touchdown point, assessing the braking
available on a given surface, and the effects of slope and
vegetation on our roll-out distance.

Spot landings are fun and useful, but we need to know, and be able
to do, much more.


Jack

Jack wrote:
Marc Ramsey wrote:

At our club we had a requirement to
land over a barrier, then get stopped within 500' prior to taking the
1-26 XC.

A reasonable test, if properly organized, but not something to do on a
day to day basis.


Why not?

Because I've seen what happens when a newbie misjudges the distance it
will take to stop, and touches down a bit too late. This may be all
well and good if one has a large grass field, but not so nice if you're
operating on a runway with a staging area at the end, and other gliders
waiting to takeoff and land.

At Williams Soaring Center there are lines painted on the runway about
20 feet apart, far enough down the runway that an ASK-21 will just about
run out of momentum without braking by the time when it reaches the
staging area. A lot of us aim at a touchdown on a selected line every
flight, it's great practice, and there's plenty of margin for error.
Once you've executed a proper touchdown, how quickly you stop is a
mostly a function of how much damage you're willing to do to the glider...

Marc

Keep doing it! Be careful with planning, scout for
land out places near your airport while flying and
then visit them by car to critique your choices and
to fix in your mind where they are, and extend the
distance gradually. Figure out where you went wrong
with your accident; it is probably further back in
your decision path than you might be aware. Forget
the criticism; they weren't there. Most everyone has
twenty-twenty hindsight. For the most part, these
critics are not the ones who can give you foresight,
but a good instructor can.

I have been in your shoes.



At 19:12 27 June 2007, 126driver wrote:
I would like to fly more cross country flights but
have to admit I
usually come up with a list of excuses for not going
on any particular
day. The weather is never good enough, or I have a
dinner engagement,
or my battery seems low, or something. Some of this
is a general
concern about personal injury, but I think I am also
just afraid of
landing out and having to put up with the inconvenience
of a retrieve
and getting criticism from other pilots in my club.
(I did some damage
to my glider on a land out last year and I have lost
a lot of
confidence.) I thought I would get over this, but
have not so far.
Has anybody else been through a period like this, and
if so, how did
you work it out?

thanks,

Steve

Steve,

John Cochrane hit many of the key points. I'll just add a few
thoughts of my own.

Over the years, I've run many ground schools on XC Soaring. On
average 6-8 folks show up. A year later, I'll follow up with
them. Fully 75% (say 6 of the 8 in the above example) would hem
and haw before admitting that they still haven't gone out of gliding
range of the home airport. There's always a long list of excuses -
time, weather, availability of equipment, availability of crew etc.
(sound familiar?). So, you're not alone.

On the first day of class, I would ask people to privately write down
3 reasons they haven't gone XC. Invariably the following would be at
the top of the list:

1. Fear of landing out.
2. Fear of getting lost.
3. Confidence in my soaring skills (thermalling in particular, but
also including choosing the right clouds, final gllides, etc).

Item 2 is much less of an issue with GPS being ubiquitous. Yes, you
still should know how to read a map and maintain situational
awareness, but it's clearly not the same issue it was even 10 years
ago.

Item 3 is easy to practice at the home field. A combination of dual
instruction, comparison in gaggles, and pure, focused practice is the
key.

That leaves us with item 1. You can practice many of the aspects
of landing out right at home. Try landing on different parts of the
airfield with real (or imagined) obstacles to make it intersting. See
if you can routinely land your 1-26 in say 700 feet after crossing a
50 foot imaginary tree (imaginary trees are much more forgiving then
real ones when you're practicing).

Pick local fields from the air, including the approach you would fly,
where you would touch down, etc. Then, drive out and look it over.
Was the field as big as you thought? Did you judge the slope, crop,
obstacles, etc. correctly? Do this over and over until you have a
good track record of choosing safe fields.

I would also add that the fear of landing out is not the least bit
irrational. I've told myself and students that you can assume that
1 out of every 10 field landings will result in some sort of minor
damage to the glider. That means torn gear doors (if you got 'em),
busted tailwheels, belly scrathes and dings, etc. You can just tell
your club mates that you skewed the odds in your favor for the next
9 !

Seriously, if the club or operation where you fly isn't solidy behind
you, then you're at the wrong site. In our club, we have a wonderful
group of active XC pilots. You know you're in the right group for XC
when:

- People ask "how far did you go", not "how long were you up?"
- There's an annual award for the best retrieve.
- People lavish attention on trailers, even if the aircraft
themselves are ratty.
- They make you do your silver distance in a 1-26.

Anyway, there's really no simple answer. I'd say that the confidence
comes when you know you've got all of the building blocks in place.
Couple that with a supportive team around you, and it's really a lot
of fun.

Erik Mann
LS8-18 P3

126Driver wrote:
I would like to fly more cross country flights but have to admit I
usually come up with a list of excuses for not going on any particular
day. The weather is never good enough, or I have a dinner engagement,
or my battery seems low, or something. Some of this is a general
concern about personal injury, but I think I am also just afraid of
landing out and having to put up with the inconvenience of a retrieve
and getting criticism from other pilots in my club. (I did some damage
to my glider on a land out last year and I have lost a lot of
confidence.) I thought I would get over this, but have not so far.
Has anybody else been through a period like this, and if so, how did
you work it out?

thanks,

Steve

You already have lots of good advice. I'll add this.

Thermalling is the key. Any fool can glide between thermals. If you can
thernal well, you can almost always get high enough to glide somewhere
better than where you are. So, how do you get better at thermalling? Well,
I've noticed that everybone gets a lot better at it once they are out of
gliding range of home.

Bill Daniels

Thanks you all for your detailed and thoughtful responses. It is nice
to see that my issues are understood and perhaps were even experienced
by many others in the soaring community. (Seems like we don't talk
about this much.) I will definitely incorporate all of your collective
insight and suggestions into my cross country endeavors going
forward. I'm actually looking forward to the remainder of the soaring
season!

Thanks again,

Steve