Shifting Gears for Mid Summer Flying

Please tell what happened and how it might have been avoided. Names should be ommitted. This forum should help others learn from mistakes that caused or nearly caused a mishap.
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Christian
Posts: 238
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 9:32 am
Location: Pacific Palisades

Shifting Gears for Mid Summer Flying

Post by Christian »

Safety Director Joe Greblo reminds us:

"As July approaches, mid day flights will encounter stronger and stronger winds and turbulence. We'll also see stronger lift as well as sink that can make it easy to sink out between thermals and difficult and certainly more dangerous to land. More and more we will see pilots choosing to drive up later in the day to take advantage of the smoother and more abundant lift areas."

Here's the perspective of a 60-hour Hang 3 (me):

Low time pilots --and pilots who haven't flown in a while--often go home grumbling when deciding to fly at local noon, when the sun is directly overhead. It's bumpy, there's an inversion, OK. But I've also sunk out in between wonderful 1200 fpm thermals--and then found myself landing in one. It happens to everybody, H4s too. But when you're down and everybody else is still up you feel like a dork.

Some of the tricks I learned in summer midday flying are to get away from the ridge; dont ride the thermal all the way to the top (where it breaks up); keep up speed, and relax--away from terrain there's no real danger except biting your own tongue off. Landing in thermal turbulence isnt that big a deal on a forgiving glider, either. We recent students have been trained how to deal with it---just make sure youre in a frame of mind to use what you know. We need to be alert and aggressive in the pattern, to expect lift and sink and alter the pattern to deal with it.

Some days you feel like kicking butt. BUt mostly, at my level, a later truck ride up the hill is just more fun. Launch at 3:30 or 4 p.m, get your hour, and you'll often have a flight that's exciting at first but gradually eases off. Fly till 6 and you may well be in a super-smooth glass-off, and alone on the mountain. Often a Hang 2 is the last one up there in summer, flying long shadows and loving it.

For what its worth,
Christian
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