Maximum autonomy for expert glider pilots?

In article
,
" wrote:

On Jul 3, 7:58*am, Mike Ash wrote:

. 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.)

Heck, this happens in power flight. LOL. Unforecasted IMC for a VFR
pilot would be the prime example.

Note that when I wrote "field", I meant "wheat", not "air".

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.

I think this would be consistent no matter what you fly whether it be
glider or power flight.

I really think the luck factor is very minimal in a properly prepared
flight myself. Maybe bad luck, but day like today in MS and temps in
the 90's, severe clear, can't imagine no lift conditions.

I think that with gliders, it can be reduced, but is still fairly large,
and much larger than with powered flight. The reason is simply that very
small changes in conditions can result in very large changes in soaring
quality, whereas powered aircraft don't care quite so much. For example,
high cirrus moves in and cuts off 80% of your heating, killing all
thermals in the area. Power pilots don't care (probably welcome the
reduced turbulence!) but glider pilots are sad. Cirrus is, from what
I've seen, very difficult to forecast in advance. Another example: winds
are forecast at 15kts perpendicular to the local ridge. Launch, get
there, and discover that local rotor effects are completely suppressing
the wind at ridgetop level. Short flight. That one put me into a plowed
dirt field once.

I'm *usually* not surprised by the weather, but it happens....

Little update on my gliding arena.

Club is flying today and I am hoping to get a lesson in. Downside to
student status is you need two two pilots on hand so I emailed my
instructor to see if it's a good day for lessons.

Why do you need two tow pilots on hand as a student?

Haven't heard from him yet. Club is breaking off from Pisgah and
moving to Woodbridge. Talk about convenient as it's only 4 miles from
my house. You can bet once I go solo, they will see me every Friday
they fly. (my self appointed flying day).

I'm jealous. My gliderport is about 75 miles away....

On the subject of gliders and cross-country flying, I participated in a
fly-in today! A novel experience for engineless flight. A local resort
with a private airport held an Independence Day festival which included
a fly-in, so I decided to participate. Beautiful but tricky little
airport nestled in the mountains. Only about 30 miles from the
gliderport so a piece of cake to get over there. Trailered back out in
the evening, lots of interest from people on the ground. Always good to
try something new.

Flight trace he

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...l?flightId=-16
94194266

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

In article , says...

"Mxsmanic" wrote

I ask because I read stories about gliders going on and on for hours and
hundreds of miles or more, which implies that there must always be some
way to
gain altitude, provided that a pilot is sufficiently skilled. Or are these
pilots just lucky as well?

It depends...

If you sink out while the others stay up it is luck. If you stay up while
the others sink out it is skill.

Good luck - I don't think MX does, or even understands, humour.

--
Duncan.

"Mxsmanic" wrote

I ask because I read stories about gliders going on and on for hours and
hundreds of miles or more, which implies that there must always be some
way to
gain altitude, provided that a pilot is sufficiently skilled. Or are these
pilots just lucky as well?

It depends...

If you sink out while the others stay up it is luck. If you stay up while
the others sink out it is skill.