Thermal Duration contest strategies

[nuevo]

This thread is for experienced contest pilots to give advice on how to fly and how to practice for Thermal Duration (TD) contests. Less experienced contest pilots are encouraged to ask questions.

Who am I? No one special, but I have competed in contests for 8 years, and have earned many trophies. I've learned from some of the best competitors in the Southeast US, and beyond. I have completed almost all of the tasks for LSF level 5. I take contests seriously and actually practice for them. I orient much of my weekend flying towards that goal. There are many others who's contest experience and skills vastly outshine my own. I hope to draw some of them out of the closet, so we may all learn something from each other.

Let's not turn this thread into a contest bashing thread. I also do not intend to argue what contest format is better than what other format. If you want to do that, start your own thread. I hope to use this discussion solely for educating others, who honestly desire to learn how to do better at thermal duration contests.

I plan to write several articles, but would like to start trying to answer one question. What is a contest?

First, a TD contest is simply a set of tasks that you as a pilot must perform. These tasks were designed to be measured objectively by a stopwatch and a measuring tape. Almost always, you are assigned to fly a specific time each flight and land the plane according to some landing task. Usually, you score the highest if you fly exactly the time specified and land your plane as close as possible to some markings on the ground. The times and landing tasks vary, of course. You get measured against the other pilots that fly on that day, so absolute perfection is not required. Like golf, you only have to do better than everyone else, to win. ;)

Second, and important to me, a TD contest is a chance to socialize, meet new soaring folks, and see friends from neighboring states you only get to see a few times each year. Socializing is about 1/2 the reason I attend contests. If you go to a contest, fly, sit in your chair, and don't at least say hello to others, you're missing out on half of the fun. IMHO, of course. :D

My next topic will attempt to answer this question. How can I fly at my own field, and help me prepare for a contest?

[nuevo]

This space is reserved for web links useful to those who want to improve their skills. I will add links to this post as topics get discussed:

I will start with this set of well written articles, oriented to the aspiring contest pilot.

http://www.torreypinesgulls.org/reference.htm


Jim Burch wrote an excellent article demonstrating the advantages of using ballast:
Why use ballast? (http://home.att.net/~jdburch/polar.htm)

I came across a useful article about Thermal Hunting (http://www.rmsadenver.com/lift.htm), by Mark Howard.

[ICTHRMLS]

One of the most frequent mistakes made in contest flying is launching without a plan.... approaching the flight as a fun fly. If you are not scanning the sky on your way to the winch - looking for other planes, birds, wind shifts, etc. - you have significantly reduced your chances of completing a task successfully. If you launch and then ask your timer where to go you havn't properly prepared yourself and are now relying on luck.

Granted, the new flyer is going to be more concerned about a safe launch with the wings still intact or may simply not know enough about thermal hunting to have formed a plan on his/her own but they owe it to themselves to at least know where they should head upon release. A little conference with your timer should get you headed in a direction and makes you more decisive. If the plan isn't right so be it but lumbering around the sky with no thought about where to search is an early and easily corrected mistake.

I bring this up because after 12 years of competition flying I blew a contest round last month by doing what I just wrote about...... not having a plan. Guess we need those reminders every now and then.

[nuevo]

Here is the big picture. You know you will be asked to fly a certain time, and land on some spot. It’s a good bet that the time will be more than 2 minutes. Where I compete, the time is almost always 8-10 minutes per round.

A local contest usually consists of 4-6 rounds per day. Each round is one flight followed by one mandatory :) landing. Scoring varies by contest, but the basics are:
fly exactly the time specified to maximize your score
land so that the nose of your plane is as close as possible to the landing target to maximize your score.
In a nutshell, that’s it. The rest are just details. :D

I’d like to echo a piece of advice I got many years ago from Don Vickers. He said:
If you want to do well at contests, then you fly every single flight as if you were in a contest. Try to make 10 minutes on every flight. If you’re low at 2 minutes, don’t give up and land. Find a way to make those 10 minutes. Try. Also, land every flight on a target, and use a stopwatch to land every flight on a clock.


Let’s take these steps in order.



Time every flight

You don’t have to write the results down. Just know what time you flew. Some days you’ll do great, some days not so great. How consistent are you at making your times? Weather has a great deal to do with this. Set goals for yourself that take some work to achieve. A good starting point is 5-6 minutes for every flight.

Obviously, being able to locate and fly in lift is required. I’m not going to cover all the ways to read the air. One good resource I know of is Dave Thornburg’s “Old Buzzard's Soaring Book”, if you can find it. [ Personal peeve: I recommend not purchasing from Soaring Stuff.]

As ICTHRMLS said, before you launch, take a look around. This is not elementary school. It’s ok to copy from others. Are there other planes in the air going up (that you can reach from a launch)? Hmmm. Maybe everyone on the left side of the field is in sink. That should tell you something too. All of this presumes you are looking at the sky for at 30-60 seconds before you need to launch.


Try landing on a spot every flight

Some guys at my club bring a carpet scrap to the field on weekends and throw it on the ground. It is a light color with a bright red spot painted in the middle of it. We use that for landings. If you’re in a pinch, throw your hat on the ground and try to land near it. If you want to truly measure yourself, make a landing tape. I have one made from 3” wide “lawn chair” tape available at the garden department at Wal-Mart. (Hint: this stuff is seasonal). Use a sharpie and make a mark every foot. My good friend Brian Smith made one for me. He glued the high-point end to a 3x3 piece of plywood and drilled a hole in it. I take it to the field and nail it into the ground. If you’re new to spot landings, make a 25’ tape. If you’re very experienced, make a 5’ tape. :D

The Thornburg book has some good comments on landing practice. Also a few excellent Torrey Pines articles are below. Focus on the landing portion of the articles, for now.

The Art of Landing (http://www.torreypinesgulls.org/landing.htm)

Improving Your Contest Performance (http://www.torreypinesgulls.org/improve.htm)

Flaps (http://www.torreypinesgulls.org/flaps.htm)


At contests, realize that there may be a lot of people launching, flying, and landing at the same time. Contest organizers realize this can be a potential safety hazard. One important part of your landing practice is to be sure you do not overshoot your landing spot by very much. Some contests have a safety line drawn on the ground, several feet beyond the landing zone. If your plane lands beyond this line, you can earn a zero for the entire flight. Safety of other pilots is the reason, so you might as well expect it.


Land to a clock

If you can’t land on that tape, then don’t bother with this step yet. You should be able to land within a 25’ radius about 1/3 the time.

After you are reasonably able to make the landing zone (even once in a while), go buy yourself a tape recorder, digital pen recorder, or a Talking Timer. The Talking Timer is available all over the web for about $20.

Google search for “Talking Timer” (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=%22talking+timer%22)

I use one, and clip it to my shirt, so I can hear it. Other friends clip one to their transmitter. What I like to do is set the clock for 2 minutes, and then turn on the clock when I get low. At first, just turn the clock on, and make your landing approach. Use it over and over. I suggest you develop a consistent landing pattern, before using the clock. Even when I was first learning to land for contests, if I used my own pre-determined pattern, I was always +/- 4 seconds from the target time. The Thornburg book talks about setting up a landing pattern. If you want more details, PM me.


Set reasonable goals for yourself

Don’t expect too much out of yourself when practicing, and at contests. If you been to few or no contests, don’t expect to finish better than the bottom 1/3. Yes, I said the bottom 1/3rd. On my first contest, the only goal I set for myself was to not finish last. I barely achieved that goal by outscoring a 9 year old boy. :o

Reasonable goals for a beginner are:

get any landing points at all on 2 out of 5 landings.
Earn close to the max flight score on 2 of 5 flights. Flying within 30 seconds of the specified flight time is fine.
Here’s an article on the subject. Sage Advice - Setting Goals (http://www.torreypinesgulls.org/settinggoals.htm)



Conclusion

Parting thought: “Never try something new at a contest.” I see a lot of planes break on launch this way.

[WGH]

This is some great info! Keep it coming. I finally found a club its a 2 1/2 hours drive but well worth it, I plan on entering some contest next summer since this summer is all but shot, so I'm soaking up all this info thanks again!

[amd123]

This is the type of information that is needed for many beginners and intermediate flyers. I am not doing to bad at contests here in Michigan, but this type of information could definately help in the future. Thanks for taking the time to share!!!!!! :) :) :) :D

Alan M. Dolley

[ejett]

I believe this thread is absolutely the BEST I have ever read here since I have been a registered user. Thanks again Jon for putting this up for us. This type of thread might actually go a long way toward reversing that trend everybody is talking about.

EJ

[pocket rocket]

fly as well as you might, unless you've 'trained' your timer you can be screwed.

a few suggestions :-

don't let your timer try out a new stop watch on your contest flight

check he/she knows the correct goal time and has set the correct goal time, if this is applicable, to the watch

check with timer that the watch is indeed running after launch

let the timer know how you want the countdown to proceed before attempting the landing and not afterwards

and of course it's easy - launch, fly into lift, stay there for a few minutes, land on the spot !!!!!!!!!!

Philip

[ICTHRMLS]

Parting thought: “Never try something new at a contest.” I see a lot of planes break on launch this way.
..... Reprogram your radio on the flight line prior to launch. Hey guys... I know you have all seen "us" (those) gurus making last minute adjustments to trims and so forthon the flight line but PLEASE do not make wholesale changes prior to a contest launch unless you truly feel it is a test flight. Very unpredictable things can happen with a hurried program change when the pressure to launch is the greatest. If the contest allows (open flight window per say) stand down and do a thorough check of everything (WHILE YOU HAVE THE FREQUENCY PIN). If a servo is acting up or things aren't right just stop and evaluate whether or not you want to fly and risk tearing up equipment or personal property.

A lot of contest basix are covered in this thread but there are certain "nuances" that can make or "break" your day. Hope this helps. :p

[ICTHRMLS]

check with timer that the watch is indeed running after launch

Pock Rock is right on about everything and entire thread could be written on timers alone but it is a MUST that the timer confirms he has started the watch...... that and keeping you out of the fire ant piles :D (southern thang)

[nuevo]

What to expect at your first contest.

Continuing from my last post’s closing comment. “Never try something new at a contest.” I see a lot of planes break on launch this way.

I know, for those fairly new to contests, nerves and expectations are something big to deal with. Well, there’s just no way around it. I still get nervous at contests; especially during the first round. After I’ve got one flight done, I get a little more relaxed.

Mental Expectations

First of all, get your expectations in line right now. Face it. Unless you’ve been secretly been practicing contest tasks for years in a private field somewhere, where no one can watch, you are not going to win a trophy. There I said it. You are not going to earn a trophy your first time out. If you face that one little fact, you’ve taken a tremendous amount of pressure off of yourself. No sense worrying about it.

Second, when you show up to a contest, you will see a lot of people you do not know. Most of them will know each other, because they’ve been at it several years. (1) Don’t be intimidated. Go introduce yourself to a few folks. Even if you see someone whose name you recognize. Go say hello. No, you won’t make lifelong friends the first day. But since you read these kinds of articles in cyberspace, you’ve probably seen a lot of names. Now’s a great time to meet these people and see what they’re like. (2) Guess what. These people don’t know you either. That means they will not all stop what they are doing when you launch, to see how you do. So don’t be too self conscious about your flying. If you do well or not so well, it’s no big deal. My point of this whole paragraph is: relax. We’re all doing this for fun. Yes, some folks take this stuff very seriously. You’ll figure out who these guys are soon enough.

What’s happening here:

When you drive up to a contest field, you will see lots of cars parked in a line or two, and some tents being set up. All the pilots will be catching up with each other, and putting their planes together. You’ll also notice the local club members setting up several winches on the field.

What you should probably do first is find the contest director and register for the contest and pay your entry fees. In case you have not figured this out, almost all TD contests in the USA require AMA membership. You must show your AMA card during registration, so expect it.

If you’re alone, you need to meet people and meet them now. Why? Every pilot needs a timer. A timer is a person who runs a stopwatch on your flight. He also gives you advice on where to fly, where other planes are climbing in lift, where others are sinking. He also reminds you every so often what your time remaining is. If you want it, a skilled timer can also critique your flying. A good timer is hard to find. As a beginner or intermediate pilot, you want the best pilot you can find to be your timer. Note. You do not need to have the same person time for you the whole day. I’ll get more into timer’s duties in another post.

Soon after you get there, someone will yell out that a pilot’s meeting will start soon. Get your brain in gear, and gather around. If this is your first contest, you might want a notepad. You’ll hear a lot of things that might be new to you. Things the contest director (CD) will go over include:

Flight tasks for the day.
Landing tasks, and location of the landing zones
Field boundaries. If you land off-field, you get a zero for the flight. Generally, if you land off field, you have to go search for your plane in a forest somewhere, so this is not a big issue.
How the flights and landings will be scored.
Any special notes about the field. Like no flying at all over the apartment building on that side of the field.
Frequency conflicts. Pay careful attention here to see if anyone else is on your channel. If so, find out who that person is, and make sure he knows who you are. You two (or more) will be sharing the channel for the day.

A safety note here. I realize some of you fly alone and not in clubs. At a contest, or a club field you never turn on your transmitter without having a clip called a “frequency pin” attached to your transmitter. This pin is a sign that you “own that frequency”. Great care is required here. The general rule is, if you cause someone else’s plane to crash, you just bought him a new one. :eek:


How long each round will be.
When the first flight start.
What the flight group assignments (if any) are.
Pop off’s. This is when you get a “sub-optimal launch” by your plane coming off of the winch line too early. Some CD’s allow a relaunch after a pop-off, some don’t. Some allow a limited number of relaunch attemps for beginners, and some don’t.
And a lot of other useless stuff, like wether everyone is supposed to round or truncate the times to the nearest second. Someone will always ask. :rolleyes:


These are the basic rules for the day. In a few minutes, it will be time for the first round. If you don’t have someone to time for you by now, ask the CD after the pilot’s meeting to help you find one. Be polite. It is not the CD’s job to find you a timer.

Finding a timer might be harder than you think. Most of the expert pilots already have their favorite people, and they time for each other. Can you blame them. They know exactly what to expect of each other, and know each other’s abilities, flying styles, and limitations. Just be aware of that, and not too upset when your favorite pilot says no to you. Think about it this way. If a pilot agrees to time for you (and he already has a timer/partner), he is doing that other person a disservice. Don’t expect to much, and when you get to be the hot shot, don’t forget those growing in the sport too.

Since you don’t know many or any folks, and you are a beginner; frankly, anyone friendly will do. A timer does not even have to know how to fly planes, although it helps.

I could say more, but someone else already has. Fred Sage wrote a 3-part article titled When to Launch (http://www.torreypinesgulls.org/launch.htm). I wish I wrote it. It is a long read, but well worth it. Read it at least twice.

The article covers many things. Among them choosing a timer, timer’s duties, etc. I’ll try to summarize some of that material and add my own observations in my next installment.

[ChuckA]

Jon has started a greaat thread. This could evolve into a book or another Evo thread. For now, I have a couple of suggestions.

1. Be prepared to fly. It's too late to learn how to fly, trim your model, or program your transmitter. Fly what you have, observe, and digest what you learn. Then go home and practice what you learned before the next contest.

2. Relax! It's just a hobby. If I can't go to a contest, come in last, and still have fun, then its time to find a new hobby. He who says second place is the first loser has lost a great hobby and found an obsession. Of course the higher I place, the more fun I have.

Chuck Anderson

[BrianSmith]

Wow..Wonderful thread...I read and re-read the posts and I have very little to add...One thing you might consider is if your going to be come a "real contester" instead of a once or twice a year contest flyer is: get the best/latest/model you can afford...And stick with it...Too many folks trying to buy success and it "AIN"T" going to happen by just spending tons of money on the latest ship every time one comes along....Make sure your C/G is right...Make sure your tow hook is optimized for a good, but safe launch..Pop offs at a contest do nothing to calm your nerves... Be sure all is well and working right before you arrive at the event, as rushing around trying to re-trim or fix things will only distract the concentration you need for great soaring flights and 100 point landings that you have been practicing for..
Remember to have fun...Remember to have fun..I like others, used to go to win -about 70% -and to visit friends about 30%...Now I can honestly say I give it my best shot to win, but visiting and seeing pals and old friends has risen well above the 50/50 mark...Oh yeah..Did I say, remember to have fun.?? :D Brian Smith

[nuevo]

Who’s This Timer Person?

What are the basic duties of a timer:

The most basic duties of your timer are: Start the stopwatch as soon as the plane comes off of the launch line. Stop the stopwatch as soon as your plane touches the ground. (Technicalities covered later in this post) The official timer’s job is to time your flight, and report it on a scorecard. That said, if you get a timer, who only does this and no more, go look for someone else.


But what about all that other stuff?

Here are what I consider the duties of a good Timer.

Start & stop the stopwatch.
Before you launch, give you commentary on who’s in lift, and where they are.
Report signs of lift, wind changes, etc.
As soon as the launch is complete, the timer should guide the pilot to walk away from the launch area to a place where he can stand and fly. If you are new to contests, be prepared for a timer to grab your arm, belt buckle, or shirt sleeve and gently guide you across the field.
During the flight, tell the pilot of others going up (that the plane can reach).
Provide commentary on the pilot’s own flying, if it’s wanted. For example: “your plane is climbing better on the left side of the circle”, or “smooth it out a little”. Note: I am not saying the timer should be critical; just offer gentle critique of minute-by-minute action. But only, if this commentary is actually desired by the pilot. More skilled pilots don’t want this kind of talk.
I always try to talk in a calm and reassuring voice. If someone crashes, don’t upset the pilot.
Keep an eye on the landing zone. If someone’s plane zooms beyond the landing zone, I take it as my duty to get in front of the pilot and protect him from a collision, if necessary. Remember, the timer is not flying and should be aware of what’s going on on the ground.
When about 2-3 minutes remain in the flight (or the plane is getting low), walk the pilot towards a landing zone. There will be several.
If there are others in the landing zone (and there will be), the timer should work it out with other timers, who is going to land where and when. Usually a 1-minute separation is required in landing times for one pilot to land, measure the landing, and get out.
As the landing time approaches, the timer should straighten out the landing tape, and report to the pilot any last minute changes in the wind direction, etc.
Provide a countdown, exactly as the pilot wants it.


I know that’s a lot. As you can see, the timer has plenty to do and think about.

Ideally a timer should know you, your abilities, and limitations. Fred Sage covers this better than I can in his in-depth article When to Launch (http://www.torreypinesgulls.org/Launch.htm)


Personality:

You must realize that personality plays a big part in selecting a timer. In a pinch, most anyone will do. If you’re a beginner, any pilot is fine. If possible, always try to get a timer who’s a better pilot than you. Of course, if everyone followed this line of thinking, that ace pilot would not want you as his timer. :D

If you are the pilot, you must communicate with your timer a few minutes before the flight on what you want. Specifically:

How do you want to hear the watch countdown? Count-up, count-down, how often? For example: “I want a count up time (just read the clock), starting in the last 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, give me the time every 15 seconds. In the last minute, give me the time every 5 seconds”. Whatever the pilot wants, he should let the timer know before the launch.
Commentary on flight (see above). Some pilots want it. Some don’t. Some timers just don’t give any. Some talk too much. The pilot and timer need to work that out.


Note, if you do not have a consistent landing pattern, then hearing the time every 5 seconds is probably going to frazzle your nerves more than help. If you are new at contests, just try to land within 20-30 seconds of the specified time.


Technicalities:

There are a few technicalities in the AMA rules that you should be aware of, regarding timers. Rules. What rules? Yes, there are rules, and they are worth reading. AMA Sailplane Rules (http://www.modelaircraft.org/templates/ama/PDF-files/Rulebook/rc-sail.pdf)

Related to timing, some rules of note.

The clock should stop when the model touches the ground; not after a 2 second slide in the grass. (section 10.2.2b)
All times should be rounded to the nearest second. (section 10.2.2b) Note: do whatever the CD specifies during the pilots meeting.
The official timer is not supposed to give out the time during the last 10 seconds of flight (section (section 10.2.2b). Note: This rule is very often ignored.



Count up or down?

One important thing to think about. Do you want count up (5, 10, 15, 20) in the last minute, or count down (55, 50, 45, 40)? If you practice with a Talking Timer, then you probably want count down. But some people do not have countdown stopwatches, and are unable to “translate” on the fly. They have to read 9:05 and say “55”. Then read 9:10, and say “50”. It can be confusing for the timer, if he’s not used to it. If you are the pilot, be prepared for anything. At a nearby club, they have all standardized on “count-up, just read the clock”. Once the pilot has learned that, anyone can time for him.


Philosophy

My personal philosophy when I am the timer. I try to be a coach, assistant, guide, tactician, and gopher. Anything the pilot needs; I try to take care of. As a timer, I consider myself a consultant. The pilot is in control, and I try to be his assistant, and make as many things as possible smooth for him. Do what the pilot cannot do himself. Be his eyes looking around the field, while he is flying.

I give advice, but do not get the least bit angry if it is ignored. Some timers get insistent if they tell you there is lift over so and so, and you don’t go. Not me. The pilot might like the weak lift he’s in, and not want to go where you told him a boomer exists. That’s fine. It’s his flight, not mine. I try to not tell the pilot what to do, but to give him information and advice that are useful. He has to decide what to do with it.

Be pretty sure of the advice you give. It’s a sinking feeling (no pun intended) when I tell a pilot to go somewhere. He follows my advice and finds nothing but sink. Uggh.

I also try to only give information to the pilot that he can actually use. If the pilot is struggling to make his time and is at 100’ of altitude, I do not tell him of the 5 guys climbing in lift at 1500’ altitude on the opposite side of the field. He cannot reach them, so no sense bothering him with that. If the pilot is looking for lift and someone else in his area or at lower altitude has found some, I will report that.

For a 10-minute flight, I don’t even bother reporting the time to the pilot until he’s flown at least 5 minutes. What’s the use? If he’s high, it’s useless to tell him there are 8 minutes left. If he’s scratching for lift at 100’, he does not need that added pressure, either. Of course, if the pilot requests time, then let him know.

[solo6796]

I got to fly with Jon's club at the Mid South Soaring Championships. It was my first large contest. I learned a heck of a lot while flying there, with the coaching I got from the more experienced pilots.

I find that now, I have formed some better habits, my ability for find usable lift has improved, and I'm getting closer to the mark more consistently in landing.

There is no substitute for practice and experience.....Thanks, Jon!

Let's go flying!

AJ

[R. Carver]

People who are on the same channel as you make good candidates for timers. Make sure you pay attention at the pilots meeting so you can snag those guys.
A good timer does all the things Jon mentioned. An excellent timer will also grab the ring and hook it to the towhook for the pilot :)

[The orig. Noin]

Just a story I thought I would share with you guys. It has a little lesson at the end.

I learned to fly with gliders. I didn't touch a powered plane until I had flown on my own for sometime. I never flew competitively but I just loved to fly as long as the lift would let me.

Years after I started flying glow my glider flying dwindled to very little time over the season. Then the powered club I was a member at decided they were going to have a glider TD contest. I entered and had a terrible start. After I launched from the highstart I found lift, gained some altitude and things were going well. Then I started a right turn and was unable to bring it out of the turn. The turn steepened into a spiral dive. The other members saw this and expressed some concern, when I told them I could not recover one of the more experienced pilots came over and tried to recover the plane himself. The plane would respond to the elevator but not the rudder. He was unsuccesful so he gave the transmitter back to me. I then tried playing with the elevator and noticed that if I held full up the plane would accelerate and the dive would steepen even more. If I held in down elevator I could slow the plane down and produce a shallower dive so thats what I did till the plane hit the ground. I walked over and the nose from the leading edge bulkhead forward had parted company with the plane. I took it back to my vehicle and began repairs. I also was able to correct the problem causing the right hand turn, a pushrod was binding and caused the rudder to remain in the right deflection position. I was able to get it back to flying condition and relaunch the plane after inspection. Immediately after launch I noticed the plane was not flying as it had before the crash. I was able to trim the model to get it to fly well and went on to have the longest flight of the day. I ended up winning my first contest with that flight.

The reason for the flight performance change after the crash was that I had removed all of the balancing nose weight and the plane was some what tail heavy. When I landed the elevator trim was in the full down position.

The lesson I mentioned was no matter how bad your flying is on the first flight of the day it is still possible to pull one out of a hat and turn your day around.

Ted

[AustinTatious]

I have not been flying contest for long.. However I have been fortunate enough to watch and fly with some really Great pilots.

Lessons I have learned are:

1: ALWAYS come off the launch with as much energy as possible.

2. If you arent in lift, you are in dead air or sink. Do not try to Keep the glider up at this time.. lowere the nose and get out of it as quickly as possible.

3. Go where the Birds are.. If they are going up, your plane will go up.

4. If other planes are doing poorly.. stay away from them!

I prefer to go upwind until I hit some good lift then work it up and drift downwind with it until It is specked out.. jsut a Dot.. If you still need more time after this.. head back upwind.. if you judged it right you should be able to get back to launch area at launch altitude, "rinse repeat"

Do not:

Get forced into flying for any other reason than the time window ( and not by that if at all possible)

Unless there is VERY little average wind ( not usually here in TX) or you know for sure there is MASSIVE lift, do not head downwind off the launch.

bypass the Zoom on launch (if your glider can take it)

Give up if you are low ( i have had many unbelievable saves from down low.. I have also seen some really creepy low level stuff happen)

Forget to talk to your timer and clear up what you want him to do while you are flying


Thats about all the usless advice I can give... The only other thing is to Be familiar with your plane and be able to recognise lift when the plane flys thru it.

Austin

[Soarbird]

This is "The Right Stuff" and a big thanks for sharing this world of experience which will cut down the learning curve for us lesser mortals.

Have already mailed the link to all our glider pilots at the club and a big thankyou from them as well. :D

[dxg0001]

I wish this thread would have been here 3 weeks ago. It would have prevented a lot of anxiety when I decided to participate in my first contest. I’m an absolute beginner in this hobby. I used to fly full size gliders and single engine airplanes but let me tell you, flying R/C is a lot harder (Proof: I never crashed in a full size plane). Anyway, while I was building my first plane from a kit early this year, a GP Spirit, I started to learn the basics of R/C flying with some smaller electric models (Airobird, Graupner Tipsy).

There is a great Glider Club here in the area (the Soaring League of North Texas http://www.slnt.org ) and I went to one of their contest meetings at Southfork Ranch where I met some very nice people who helped me with my new plane, got it properly balanced and even pulled it up with the winch. What a thrill, my bird actually flew! I was handed the transmitter and nervously guided my Spirit back to earth where they talked me through the landing (I can still hear them: Left … Left! … Left!!!!!). Also, with the help of the same nice people I learned to use the High-Start and was then able to fly and practice with my plane at the local park.

That’s when I decided I’d like to try to fly in the next contest they had in August, again at Southfork Ranch (can’t be that hard, right?). I figured the best way to learn it is to do it, however, I really had no idea what to expect. I called the CD for this event and he explained a few things to me which gave me some idea, but also raised my anxiety level a bit. When I got to the field on Sunday, August 8, I met the CD and he hooked me up with Bobby, a very nice gentleman to show me the ropes and be my timer, launch my plane for me, etc. This worked out great. Bobby is probably the calmest person I’ve ever met which was just perfect. He explained the tasks of the timer and had me time him for his first flight. This gave me an opportunity to observe and learn what was expected of me.

Now it was time for my first flight. At this point, surprisingly enough, I wasn’t nervous anymore. Bobby was going to paddle my plane up (I was controlling it though) and all I had to do was fly it around for a little bit and land it somewhere close to a rope on the ground. As it was mentioned in this thread, it comes down to expectation. This was an open contest. My 2M Spirit stuck out like a sore thumb sitting on the grass between all those sleek, full house gliders with their long, aerodynamic wings. So, expectations where low … but not that low: I couldn’t make the time in any of the 5 rounds. I didn’t get closer than 200 feet to the landing rope. I ended dead last. But, I had a blast, met a lot of nice people and know that this hobby will keep me interested for a very long time because there is a lot to learn and there are many challenges ahead.

Thanks to all the people who helped me that day and thanks to everybody contributing to this wonderful thread. It is more helpful to us beginners than you can imagine and is very much appreciated. I’m looking forward to the next contest to put some of the things I learned here to use.

Regards, Dietmar.

[nuevo]

Here’s story I read a year or so ago, from my friend Gordy Stahl, a columnist for RC Soaring Digest magazine. All of the issues from the last few years can be downloaded and read at the link below.

This article is courtesy of RC Soaring Digest (http://www.rcsoaringdigest.com/) magazine.

Jon

Don’t pick apart the details. You’ll miss the big picture. This story makes a strong point with me. Hopefully it will encourage you too.

Read on, laugh and learn!


Interrogation of a Sport Soarer

(An imaginary story from the daydreams of a soaring enthusiast!)

I flew a contest in St. Louis and got into a discussion with the club president about why lots of guys show up if they call a ‘fun soar’ day, but not many show up for contests.

I knew why, but heck it’s just my opinion, so I asked him who would be a representative ‘sport soarer’ in the club. He told me and I got the guy’s address. I proceeded to head over to the guy’s house only to find him cutting the grass. I snuck up and bopped him with my Super Stand pole, then stuffed him in my truck.

I got to the motel. I tied him to a chair with wing tape, then took off his shirt and applied the new really aggressive hinge tape, that I got from Don Richmond at Visalia, all over his hairy chest and back.

I brought him back to reality by spritzing some CA Kicker under his nose and began my interrogation (for an RCSD article of course), asking the same question.

WHY DON’T YOU FLY YOUR CLUB CONTESTS!

And, I wasn’t too pleased with his response.

“I’m not interested in competitions...”

Yep, I could see it was going to be a long night before I’d make it thru the usual canned ‘reasons’.

RIPPPP! I pulled off a piece of tape.

“YEOW!!!!” He exclaimed.

“It’s too much stress!” RIPPPP!

“No full size plane sticks its nose in the ground for a landing.” RIPPPP!

“I don’t need to prove anything.” RIPPPP!

“It's not ‘fun’!” RIPPPP!

“Cuz I don’t own a stop watch!!!!” RIPPPP!

I finally ran out of hinge tape, and I considered clipping pieces of carbon pushrod to use under his finger nails. I was close to him finally fessing up with the truth... It was getting late and I had an 8:30 pilots meeting the next day so it was time to get serious, and pull out all the stops. Yep, the one thing that will break any sailplaner... I reached for his wallet...

“Okay, Okay!!!! I’ll tell you why us sport soarers don’t come to contests. It’s because we aren’t PREPARED! We never practice. Heck, we aren’t sure how to practice! When we come to the field, we don’t have a talking timer to count down specific amount of minutes of flight time, and we never have a target to land at. SO, when contest day comes up we aren’t comfortable suddenly being expected to control the sailplane on purpose! We just aren’t prepared and that makes us feel like we aren’t welcome. We love to fly and want to fly every opportunity. We want to join in the fun those contest guys seem to have! We just haven’t practiced and don’t have the confidence to feel we belong.”

Now that I had him talking, I couldn’t get him to shut up...

“When I turned 16, there were 8 of us in our town who went down to get our drivers licenses. When we got there, there was some government guys there who separated us into two groups. I was in the ‘Sport Drivers’ group of four, the other group was called the ‘Elitists’.”

“Those poor Elitists really got screwed! Us Sport Drivers were taken to a 100 acre driving area that had no obstructions and was surrounded by thick soft rubber bumpers. The instructor assigned us each a car, showed us how to start it and make it go, but that was it. He may have mentioned something about a ‘brake’, but there really was no need. Mostly all we had to do was to stay away from each other. IT was a ball, we could drive anywhere, any way, fast or slow. On weekends we’d go out and drive around for hours on end; we’d do circles and figure 8’s, and pretty much just drive around. It was great, and we did it for about 2 years. Near the end it got kind of boring.” “The Elitists had it really bad. They had to go to classes, and were forced to place their hands on certain spots on the steering wheel. Even had to shift their hands in a certain way when turning. They had to drive in skinny lanes, and could only drive one direction in certain lanes, too. And were restricted to specific speeds, as well. Uck! Seemed like a lot of work for nothing.”

”The instructors would make them do really hard boring stuff over and over and over. Things called U-turns, Y-turns, parallel parking. Then even made them back up with trailers hooked to their cars. As the 2 years went on, the Elitist group was made to do more and more boring and scary stuff like driving in rush hour traffic with lots of other cars packed in really close, and driving really fast on freeways. Or drive downtown and park in really tight spots. (We couldn’t figure out why they would bother with stuff like that, since mostly all we did to stop was just let the car coast till it stopped somewhere on the driving area. Sure, it was a hassle cuz it could be a long walk back to the entrance, but it sure was a lot easier than what those poor Elitists had to put up with. Imagine this! Their driving area had lots of weird obstacles called stop signs and stop lights, and their instructors would make them practice making their cars stop with its front wheels on a thick white line, EVERY TIME. And if they missed it they would get penalty cards called ‘tickets’, which they had to pay fines for!”

”While we got bored with driving near the end of that 2 years, the Elitists were soooo brainwashed by the government men, that they couldn’t wait for the next driving class. They’d actually run to get there!”

“The abuse to the Elitist group didn’t stop there. Their instructors even had them doing math. They’d have to figure out how long it would take to get from one place to another, traveling at specific set speeds which only varied pending on signs posted along the way.”

“Anyway, near the end of those two years, us Sport Drivers pretty much hardly ever went to the driving area. Sure we had fun driving around with no rules, no requirements, and no need to fine tune our control, at least for a while.”

“Little did we realize the atrocity of the diabolical evil of this government experiment. But that wasn’t to be revealed till just before Senior Prom...”

“This gorgeous girl who I had been in love with since grad school came up to me and asked me if I would take her to the prom. She said she planned on having all the fun that was the stuff of dreams! However, she’d only go with me IF I agreed to drive her.”

“How could I? I mean, I had never had to keep my car in a lane, or at a specific speed, and what would happen if I had to do one of those parallel park things and ended up smashing into something? I couldn’t bear the pressure and possible embarrassment. I just wasn’t prepared!”

“I told her, thanks for offering, but I was only a ‘sport driver – I just do it for ‘fun’. I couldn’t admit that I wasn’t prepared...”

“She ended up marrying one of the Elitist Drivers.”

[redietz]

Don’t pick apart the details. You’ll miss the big picture. This story makes a strong point with me. Hopefully it will encourage you too.



Pick apart the details? There's so much wrong with that forced analogy, you don't need to go into the details.

I fly in TD competitions. I enjoy it. Were that not the case, and I were thinking about doing so, that posting would probably have put me off from ever doing so.

Let's substitute "scale contest" for "TD contest" (or power pattern contest, or whatever kind of competition you don't participate in.) You don't participate in that kind of competion because it's not your cup of tea. How would you like it to be told that the only reason you don't participate is because you're not prepared, and by implication you're not prepared because you're some kind of wimp. Would that encourage you to participate? It wouldn't me; I'd just think that people who do fly in those kind of competions are complete jerks. (I don't mean to be calling you a jerk; I know you posted with the best of intentions.)

It seems from some of the responses to this thread that some of its readers are only now getting into contest flying. Maybe it would be a better way of encouraging them to emphasize that it's fun; not that the reason they don't now is due to some lack of moral fiber on their part.

Some people don't fly in contest because they don't enjoy it. Why is that so hard to believe? Unlike the driver in the story, they're not going to lose out on a hot date because they only fly for fun. (In fact, they may be more likely to get one, because they "have a life.")

OTOH, if the point of the story was to convince me to go out and drive in bumper cars so that I can enjoy driving again, you just might have succeeded.

Bob

[nuevo]

Bob,

Thank you for sharing your insights. However, I believe you missed my intentions for the posting.

The posting in no way is intended to say that those who choose not to compete (in any venue) are lesser people than those who do choose to compete. Some people choose not to complete, fly only to relax, or to enjoy the beauty and joy of quiet flight. I respect that, and share some of those same choices, too.

The point of the story was to demonstrate that some people do not know how to practice for competitions. That is, how to prepare themselves. Since I started this thread aimed at those thermal flyers who have little competition, and one of my goals it to teach less experienced flyers how to practice, and what to practice, I feel that the story is indeed appropriate to this thread.

Jon

[AustinTatious]

The other thing that article implies is that The actual contest, is not fun.... I think even if you are a serious competitor and you dont have any fun flying in the contest.. then you are probably in it for the wrong reasons.

I have way more fun flying in a competition than I do jsut sport flying even if I do poorly.

[nuevo]

AustinTatious has the right idea. This is all about fun.

[redietz]

AustinTatious has the right idea. This is all about fun.


Couldn't agree more.

Sorry for being critical; I just thought that the article was saying something in addition to what I believed (correctly as it turns out) what you intended.

Bob

[SoarNeck]

I prefer to go upwind until I hit some good lift then work it up and drift downwind with it until It is specked out.. jsut a Dot.. If you still need more time after this.. head back upwind.. if you judged it right you should be able to get back to launch area at launch altitude, "rinse repeat"

Do not:
Unless there is VERY little average wind ( not usually here in TX) or you know for sure there is MASSIVE lift, do not head downwind off the launch.


Hey Austin (and all),

I can't say I agree with the above statements. Why would you go upwind right away...especially if there are no other sailplanes there to show you what the air is like? If you pay attention to the air temp, wind shifts, and a variety of other indicators, you can tell exactly what kind of air has passed you. Unless you haven't felt anything go by (or know that sink has), there's no sense in venturing into the unknown if you don't have to.

I used to fly exactly like you described above, and it worked fine for a while...but it's relying on luck a bit too much. Get used to flying downwind, accept that you might be landing out for a while until you get to know your model REALLY well, and your scores will improve. Learn to be comfortable flying past the point of no return, and they'll REALLY improve...nothing gives you motivation like knowing you have to find/work a thermal in order to even make it back.

Obviously, the above depends on having a sailplane with legs...or at least that makes it easier.

Just remember to read, read, read - even on launch, check to see if the wings flex more than usual or the sailplane seems really active, or if it seems to be really sluggish...signs of lift and sink, respectively (or wind changes...). If you aren't using retrievers, you can even watch the chute out of the corner of your eye, and see if it does anything different.

At the recent F3J WC's in Red Deer, I watched Joe Wurts come off a tow after less than two seconds (basically, the model rotated to vertical, and he peeled off), then immediately crank downwind. Joe had obviously been reading the air, since he immediately hooked up, and thermalled out nicely.
Sort of a nice example of what I was talking about above...though in TD you can still fly the full launch, since you aren't penalized for time-on-tow.

[AustinTatious]

I can't say I agree with the above statements. Why would you go upwind right away...especially if there are no other sailplanes there to show you what the air is like? If you pay attention to the air temp, wind shifts, and a variety of other indicators, you can tell exactly what kind of air has passed you. Unless you haven't felt anything go by (or know that sink has), there's no sense in venturing into the unknown if you don't have to.

I think you shoudl re-read what I wrote.. I said, unless you KNOW ther eis lift.. dont go downwind... IF you know its there, fine.

Get used to flying downwind, accept that you might be landing out for a while until you get to know your model REALLY well, and your scores will improve. Learn to be comfortable flying past the point of no return, and they'll REALLY improve...nothing gives you motivation like knowing you have to find/work a thermal in order to even make it back.


Wonderful.. Maybee Ill ahve a timer hold a guin to my head and threaten to shoot me if I dont make my time!!! hehe that should keep me up there!

[SoarNeck]

I think you shoudl re-read what I wrote.. I said, unless you KNOW ther eis lift.. dont go downwind... IF you know its there, fine.


You'll rarely KNOW that's there's lift anywhere, but you still have a better idea of what to expect.

Anyway, even forgetting about what I wrote before, what about coming home after a flight? If you're miles away upwind and low, but have to scoot home to make your time, how do you know what's between you and the plane? How can you tell that's there's a bubble that will squeak you over the fence, or that there's a killer sinkhole out there just dying to give you a 2:1 glideslope?

If you're downwind and in the same situation, you're guaranteed to know what's between you and your model, since it has to pass by you to get to the sailplane. If you feel lift come through, you can come back directly towards yourself (tacking upwind will be easier to see however...front profiles are tough), but if you feel sink come through, you know NOT to come directly upwind. That info has saved a number of flights for me.

I still say downwind is the safer bet :)


Wonderful.. Maybee Ill ahve a timer hold a guin to my head and threaten to shoot me if I dont make my time!!! hehe that should keep me up there!

I'm competitive enough during a contest that a gun really wouldn't provide any additional motivation...landing early is bad enough :p

[nuevo]

Windy Day Contests: Upwind or Downwind after launch.

SoarNeck, very good observations. I find I am in agreement with your strategy. I’d like to comment, if I may.

For the beginner or intermediate pilot, it is counter-intuitive to fly downwind immediately after launch. In short, this strategy appears much more risky.


If I fly downwind and don’t find lift, I won’t make it back to the landing zone.
I’ve never flown with ballast.
If I’m downwind, and low, I’m stuck.
If I go upwind, and find nothing, I can still get back home and get a landing
If I go upwind and hook a thermal, I can ride it longer
If I go way downwind, I may not get my plane back.


It took me several years of competing, and constantly pushing myself to realize that there is actually a bit of wisdom of going downwind after launch. Even if you do not know where any sign of lift is.

I must preface my comments a bit. I think this strategy that SoarNeck presented is for more advanced pilots only. I will explain in the “challenges” section below.

advantages of going downwind after launch:

If you are observant of changes in wind speed/direction, you KNOW what changes just went by you. Your plane is downwind just waiting for the lift to arrive.
Biggest help is if there is a treeline downwind. You can often hang out in a little "slope lift" from the trees for several minutes until a thermal blows through.
The field you are flying in is likely the biggest thermal generator in the area. Thermals often get "tripped" off the ground from the treeline.
Once you’ve hooked a thermal, you can ride it for as long as your eyesight holds out. Come back upwind, and wait for another one. Repeat.
If the lift is good, you get back upwind with much more altitude than you started with.


Challenges to this method are:

The pilot has to know how to stay in a thermal in windy conditions. Hint: drift with the wind. The thermal is.
Is that puff of lift my plane just saw a thermal, or just a gust from "sloping the trees" ? In other words, should I start turning, or just keep hanging out on a treeline?
My plane is climbing, but blowing downwind fast. Can I get back home given the climb rate and wind speed?
The pilot must decide quickly if the lift is good enough to commit to. Take one turn, and decide on one more turn. Two turns at the most, and you should decide if you’re climbing enough for the distance the plane is blowing downwind.
This strategy requires a plane with the ability to penetrate back upwind without excessive loss of altitude. A Paragon with no ballast is simply not going to do it
The pilot must know himself and his plane. Flying downwind is a series of calculated risks.
The plane is presumed to be properly ballasted for the conditions. Adding ballast to any plane greatly increases its ability to penetrate upwind. It does increase the sink-rate a little, but the trade off is worth it IMHO.
To be really good at this, the pilot needs to be paying serious attention to the air, lift/sink cycles, and changes in the air before he launches.


If your vision is less than 20/20, flying a long ways downwind might be your personal determining factor not to follow my and SoarNeck’s suggestions, regardless of what Joe Wurts does.

Given all that, on windy days, I often head right downwind while I still have some altitude to spare. Especially, if there is a treeline I can get back home from. Hint: a treeline 1/2 mile downwind is too “advanced” for me.

I have won two contests that I can remember on days the wind was 12 mph (5.3 m/s) or more. Few pilots were willing to venture downwind. This may be due to physical limitations (eyesight), experience in the wind, or they were just flying a slower plane and knew it. Whatever the reasons, I have the following observations from contests the past few years:

Most pilots are simply not prepared for the wind. They have not practiced in the wind, and have no idea when to use ballast, or how much for what conditions. This requires experimentation on windy days.
Most pilots do not use enough ballast. See comments below.
Most pilots go upwind and see what they can find. Sometimes they find lift, sometimes not.
About 1/2 of the pilots never leave the field in search of lift. My perception is that they fear not being able to get back.


How much ballast?

Don’t think in terms of total weight of the plane; think in terms of added wing loading. Who cares what the weight of the plane is. Adding 4 oz. to a 70 oz. 3 meter plane is not going to do much to the wing loading. Take for example the following typical 3-meter plane. 70 oz. and 950 square inches of wing area. That means a 10.6 oz / ft^2 wing loading. If you add 4 oz, what do you have? You have increased the wing loading to 11.2. Tell me, how many of us can tell a change of wing loading of 1/2 oz. in wing loading on a 3-meter plane?

My recommendation for a typical 3-meter span plane is to add ballast in increments of 8-10 oz. each time. 8, 16, 24 oz should be good enough for all but blowout conditions, when no one wants to fly. In my example above, this would give wing loadings of 11.8, 13, and 14.2 oz / sq. ft.

Jim Burch wrote an excellent article demonstrating the advantages of using ballast:
Performance Airspeeds for the Soaring Challenged (http://home.att.net/~jdburch/polar.htm)

Conclusions

For the pilot new to competing at contests, I would recommend going upwind. This pilot is not prepared to take the risks of downwind flying. He is also likely not honed his observation skills enough of the rapid changes in conditions (while flying his plane) to take advantage of them. The beginner/intermediate pilot is also more likely to be flying a slower plane, which has disadvantages when flying in the wind.

For the expert type pilot, I suggest exploring some of the suggestions above and see if the strategy is viable for you.

Jon

[SoarNeck]

Don't know if we're supposed to be talking specifically about contests, or thermal stategies in general, but here are a couple more points in case anyone is interested.

Keying off other sailplanes in the sky is important, but knowing how to make the best use of that information is important as well. When approaching a thermalling sailplane in good lift* at about the same altitude, I personally tend to hook in downwind of them. Most pilots don't drift with the lift particularly well, and eventually end up on the upwind side of the thermal. Hooking in downwind usually sits me closer to the core to start with. Don't trust that they have the core (best lift within the thermal) nailed, and out of courtesy try to circle in the same direction as the other sailplane that was there first (even if you aren't used to circling that way).

To build on the above, practice circling both ways. If you usually fly alone or tend have a better direction, fly more circles the "wrong way". It'll help you eliminate a possible source of stress while flying with the group in a contest.

When approaching a sailplane that's higher than I am, I tend to fly upwind directly underneath them. Most thermals "smear" downwind, meaning that at the lower altitude, you'll likely find lift further upwind than your buddy did. A lot of thermals meander all over the place as they grow, however, so this doesn't always work.

When practicing, learn to core lift properly. Don't just pull the usual sport-flier tricks of "circle as soon as you hit lift", or "I'm going up, that's good enough". Assuming that you're not so low as to have nothing spare to use, learn to feel for the edges of the lift before trying to lock in your circles. If you hit lift, fly until you come out of the lift...a few passes at various angles like that will usually define a thermal pretty well.

After you know where the edges are, try to find the core of the thermal. Practice holding a constant bank angle rather than trying to make perfectly round circles - that way, the wind will naturally bias your circle downwind ("drift with the lift"). When you become more advanced, learn to use the changes in velocity that happen on various points in your circles to center the lift properly, as well as slight changes in yaw angle (caused by air feeding into the core). Don't be afraid to extend your upwind or downwind legs to feel for the center.

After you can find the core reliably, practice flying out of lift and recentering it. You already know where the thermal is at that point, but this will give you practice in finding the core quickly.

Learn the point of no return for your sailplane (min height at a given windspeed that will allow you to get home), but don't treat it as a rule - just another piece of information. You'll likely zero the round if you land off-field, and at the minimum you'll get no landing points, but don't be so scared of the point of no return that you refuse to go outside of it to save a flight. If you know where lift is - you either read the air, or can see another sailplane in lift - go to it...it might save your flight!

Finally, a Dave T classic - make your last turn tighter than usual so that you pass directly through the core as you exit the thermal. The extra energy will help punch through the ring of sink around the body of lift.

These skills may not help you when everything including the cows is going up, but they'll come in handy when your at 2:00 of a 10 min task, low and heavy (ballast...learn it and love it), and you have to scrape to stay alive.

Anyway, that was long, but hopefully useful.

* some of us are evil enough to circle in sink when we know we've made our times.

[AustinTatious]

I dont see how you state that when you are Upwind, you have NO idea what is out there... Howabout those big white floaty things in the air we southerners call Clouds? Those are a big hint where some lift may be.

Also, I am not saying dont go "downwind" if the preailing winds are light.. say 5-10 mph... IM saying if its blowing 15-25... you're smart to stay upwind.

For instance, at the Houston Hawk contest, the wind was Howling both days.. Many MANY who ventured downwind did not make the landing mark... several missed the entire field.

Anyway, even forgetting about what I wrote before, what about coming home after a flight? If you're miles away upwind and low, but have to scoot home to make your time, how do you know what's between you and the plane? How can you tell that's there's a bubble that will squeak you over the fence, or that there's a killer sinkhole out there just dying to give you a 2:1 glideslope?

Well you have already messed up by gettin that low... If you cannot judge when to come home from Upwind... why would you be able to judge when to come home from downwind?

The fact is, You can make it home faster and thru less air if you are upwind.. If you are downwind, you must fly thru more air and it will take longer.. thus you must start home from a higher altitude... IF its time to head home from upwaind, you dont have 0 idea of what the air is doing.. you just flew thru it! If its sink.. go crosswind till you hit better air, then head home!

Joh has a good point about who this advice is aimed at... I didnt post this for Joe wurts, I posted it in response to the Thread starter. You may want to read that again.. he was not asking for advice aimed at Joe wurts...

Im sorry but i think telling a newcomer to fly downwind and accept that he may loose a plane or two landing out of the field to be bad advice.

[SoarNeck]

[CENTER][SIZE=3]Given all that, on windy days, I often head right downwind while I still have some altitude to spare.

Great info, Jon. The only thing I'll add is a point that I remembered after reading the above line (hope it hasn't been mentioned before).

Let's face it...most contests are won and lost on the landing tape. Our task times are short compared to the capabilities of our models, so if you can get your landings down, your scores will really benefit. As a result, if you have some spare altitude at the end of a flight you can do yourself a big favour in the landing circle with a neat little trick I learned a few years ago.

Before setting up your approach, fly directly upwind of yourself for a minute or so at lower altitudes. Tack upwind so that you can always see the angle of the fuselage clearly - that's the best indicator of lift or sink rather than a bobbed wingtip...but that's another paragraph. Don't try to circle in lift, but just watch what your model is doing - it's giving you all sorts of clues as to what kind of lift is upwind. Why do you care, you ask? You should care - that's air that will be blowing by you on landing!

I've seen a lot of landings blown because a model hits a big patch of lift or sink just before it lands. You're already upwind of the model on approach most times, but you don't neccessarily have enough warning to correct based on immediate cues. If you've gone upwind and therefore know what's likely to pass through in a min, however, you have one more tool to play with.

The stronger the wind is, the more valuable it will be to extend your upwind leg.

[nuevo]

I dont see how you state that when you are Upwind, you have NO idea what is out there... Howabout those big white floaty things in the air we southerners call Clouds? Those are a big hint where some lift may be.

Ok, my comments come from my personal bias. IMO, right off of launch, clouds are just too high to be indicators of lift.


Clouds

I rarely use clouds as direct evidence of where lift might be (right off of launch). Depending on the weather and locale. I find most cloud bases in my area are 3000' (900m) AGL. Can you launch that high off of a 600 ft line?

The only time I have found clouds to be useful indicators of lift is when I am very high already. Not quite a spec in the sky, but the plane is very small. This is not the scenario we have been discussing, I believe. Rather where to go after launch.

Observing behavior of clouds is very useful, when cross-country flying. I'll defer to full-scale soaring books for analyzing clouds. When my XC plane was 2500’ or better, I specifically look for growing clouds to get under.


Upwind, you have NO idea what is out there...

When flying downwind (if you are observant of wind shifts), you know where the lift just went, and where you should fly. Flying upwind, the only information you have is your own plane and other planes. Most beginning/intermediate pilots are so focused on their own plane, they are not astute at observing changes in the air going on around them.

[SoarNeck]

I dont see how you state that when you are Upwind, you have NO idea what is out there... Howabout those big white floaty things in the air we southerners call Clouds? Those are a big hint where some lift may be.

Also, I am not saying dont go "downwind" if the preailing winds are light.. say 5-10 mph... IM saying if its blowing 15-25... you're smart to stay upwind.

I think we imported some of those in from you then - we even have them up in Canada now ;) They're downwind too you know!

Here's an analogy: If you dump an experienced woodsman in the middle of the forrest, he may know enough to survive with nothing else to help him - but he'll feel a heck of a lot better if he has a bunch of additional tools along for the ride!

If you choose to fly with a reduced set of tools, that's fine by me - I like to be well-armed!


For instance, at the Houston Hawk contest, the wind was Howling both days.. Many MANY who ventured downwind did not make the landing mark... several missed the entire field.


Expert fliers only get that way through practice (I don't consider myself to be an expert, so take my advice only if you want to). The guys that landed off-field either didn't know their models well enough to know they'd gone too far, got caught out by changing conditions, or took a chance that didn't pay off. No guts, no glory, some days!


Well you have already messed up by gettin that low... If you cannot judge when to come home from Upwind... why would you be able to judge when to come home from downwind?


You always make ALL your times? You've never been too low to finish a round? As for being "too" whatever - it's all practice.


The fact is, You can make it home faster and thru less air if you are upwind.. If you are downwind, you must fly thru more air and it will take longer.. thus you must start home from a higher altitude... IF its time to head home from upwaind, you dont have 0 idea of what the air is doing.. you just flew thru it!
If its sink.. go crosswind till you hit better air, then head home!


Murf? I think you might be a little confused. If the air has to pass by you to get to your sailplane, you DO know a bit about what it's likely to hold.

Yes, it takes longer to get home against a headwind. So? Start home earlier.


Joh has a good point about who this advice is aimed at... I didnt post this for Joe wurts, I posted it in response to the Thread starter. You may want to read that again.. he was not asking for advice aimed at Joe wurts...

Im sorry but i think telling a newcomer to fly downwind and accept that he may loose a plane or two landing out of the field to be bad advice.

Aimed at beginning CONTEST pilots, not beginning pilots. You should have basic flying skills before entering a contest - it's a way to judge how you're progressing, like the LSF/CSS.

A complete newbie doesn't need the extra stress of a contest if they're just learning basic flight control, and experienced pilots don't need to be looking over their shoulders at a contest in case a ballastic projectile (out of control beginner) blasts by. Everyone makes mistakes, but learning to fly at a contest doesn't strike me as a good idea for any concerned.

[ICTHRMLS]

Joh has a good point about who this advice is aimed at... I didnt post this for Joe wurts, I posted it in response to the Thread starter. You may want to read that again.. he was not asking for advice aimed at Joe wurts...

Im sorry but i think telling a newcomer to fly downwind and accept that he may loose a plane or two landing out of the field to be bad advice.
Actually the thread starter went like this....."Thermal Duration contest strategies.
This thread is for experienced contest pilots to give advice on how to fly and how to practice for Thermal Duration (TD) contests. Less experienced contest pilots are encouraged to ask questions."

I happen to agree on the merits of the downwind thermal pursuit and the advice given here. This thread is not aimed solely at the novice flyer and downwinders are a huge part of consistant thermal hunting.

With that said, one the biggest mistakes pilots (especially beginners) make in learning the art of DW flying is the trip back. Too often you will see someone try to "float" back resulting in off field landings or worse. As a timer I have to remind those trying to get home to "keep the nose down" and penetrate. My rule of thumb is if I see the bottom of the plane coming upwind (in trouble of course) then the nose is too high. Obviously if you see the top of the plane you are diving excessively but most pilots tend to let the nose get too high and wonder why they aren't making it back.

DW thermals are a blast and it is much easier to determine if your plane is actually rising when heading away from you downwind. There is an old adage though that states "Live by the downwind... Die by the downwind" - there are assumed risks going there and the advice posted earlier is absoutly correct.

[nuevo]

Let's face it...most contests are won and lost on the landing tape.

Only for the very top pilots. Certainly not for everyone. And certainly not for beginners at contests, which is the focus of this thread.

For my feelings on "landing contests", see my comments in this post.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2522974&postcount=28

If you wish to reply to that post, I suggest keeping it in that thread.



ICTHRMLS, Wise advice on keeping the nose down. I completely forgot about that.

[SoarNeck]

[QUOTE=JonStone]Only for the very top pilots. Certainly not for everyone. And certainly not for beginners at contests, which is the focus of this thread.

For my feelings on "landing contests", see my comments in this post.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2522974&postcount=28

If you wish to reply to that post, I suggest keeping it in that thread.
QUOTE]

Sorry if that wasn't appropriate, but I wasn't passing judgement on anything...just adding something I thought might be useful.

[nuevo]

SoarNeck,

Your comments have been very useful. I guess that one about landing contests just struck a nerve.

I do value your input to this thread. Your experience shows in your comments.

[AustinTatious]

You always make ALL your times? You've never been too low to finish a round? As for being "too" whatever - it's all practice.

Im sorry, I did not mean to imply that I make ALL of my times... That statement was ment like this "IF you get so low upwaind that you can not make it home, You have messed up. If you cannot Jude what is too low to make it home when you are upwind, then you will probably not be able to do so from Downwind."

Does that make mroe sense?

Aimed at beginning CONTEST pilots, not beginning pilots. You should have basic flying skills before entering a contest -

in saying "newcomer" I meantto contest flying. Not to RC! :)

Here's an analogy: If you dump an experienced woodsman in the middle of the forrest, he may know enough to survive with nothing else to help him - but he'll feel a heck of a lot better if he has a bunch of additional tools along for the ride!

If you choose to fly with a reduced set of tools, that's fine by me - I like to be well-armed!

I did not say I dont fly downwind... Only that I choose to Go upwind first to find lift... especially if there is a treeline or dark field up there that could be kicking off a thermal. If I turn downwind immediatly, to stay with a thermal, I ahve to go further downwind... I would rather catch the thermal upwind and Then follow it downwind and be REALYL high when I get there! I fly a fast plane and I can almost always find somthing upwind by looking at clouds, the terrain ahead, birds, other planes, treelines and of course my plane and how it is reacting... I fly at a 45 degree angle upwind at a good clip, I can tell when the plane hits lift even when it is going fast, If im not in lift, at least Im gettin thru the air quickly. When I hit some lift, I work it up and downwind... By the time I am past myself if al has gone well, I am jstu downwind with 2 or 3 times the launch height.... Now i can do all the downwind play I want to with lots of altitude to spare....

This works for me, if you wont want to ... please dont... a part of me is happy when somone misses the field or the tape ;)

[ChuckA]

I find the discussion about searching for lift downwind amusing. The first person I ever saw go downwind after launch was Otto Heithecker back in the early 70's. Main difference was Otto didn't go downwind looking for lift. He knew where the lift was before he turned downwind. New fliers should never go downwind to search for lift. They should always search upwind unless they have a positive indication of lift somewhere else. They will have longer to search before having to head home. I don't even bother to join other models circling in lift downwind unless I feel sure that I can stay with the thermal long enough to make it worth while.

The most flustrating thing is to follow Joe Wurts to a thermal only to find that it was so far away I couldn't see the model well enough to work the lift. Happened to me three times at the 2003 Nats.

[SoarNeck]

SoarNeck,

Your comments have been very useful. I guess that one about landing contests just struck a nerve.

I do value your input to this thread. Your experience shows in your comments.

Not a worry, everyone has their pet peeves.

My last comment on landings will be that a short zip start is handy for practicing landings. For 3m models I use the catapult tubing available from Hosemonster, along with 3x the length of monofilament. Nice and zippy, and even allows for a bit of circle towing in winds.

[SoarNeck]

The most flustrating thing is to follow Joe Wurts to a thermal only to find that it was so far away I couldn't see the model well enough to work the lift. Happened to me three times at the 2003 Nats.

Just like Badger said, it's one of those contest strategies that makes things more interesting (like intentionally circling in sink). Getting used to flying at extreme distance is still my biggest weakness, and something I work on continually (or should be doing, anyway). Right now, when I can't see the tail anymore, I get nervous. Joe seems happy to fly even when the sailplane completely disappears for half a circle (to my eyes anyway).

On that note, flying is one of the reasons I insist on getting a proper eye exam every year. My eyes aren't the greatest, so I normally wear contacts - I make sure my prescription is up to date. The new "only take them out every 30 days" Night&Day contacts are much better, but I prefer to fly in prescription sunglasses.

Cheers,
Adam

[solo6796]

I usually take a zig-zag pattern upwind after launch, if I don't see any obvious signs. Last Saturday, it seemed like thermals were forming downwind (about 10 mph) more than upwind. I got some practice working lift downwind and judging my success at getting back to the LZ.

Somewhat mixed results, but began to get the feel for altitude and attitude required to get back at a certan wind condition. I did take a couple of long walks, tho.

Anyway, I see what you mean. I was able on a few flights to get back, find another thermal, get altitude (but blow further downwind) several times and ended up with 7 or 8 minutes, instead of 2.

Jon and I did a similar tack at the Mid South. We found a little lift in the LZ and circled around a bit more before landing. There was no wind, but we both tried to take advantage of a little lift at the last moment, extending our times a bit.

So......... practice in all kinds of weather conditions and know how you and your plane will react to optimize every flight.

(Even rain........ Right Jon?)

AJ

[ChuckA]

I do exactly the opposite. I only go upwind if I know that there is lift. Otherwise I head down/crosswind, Very few people will follow. Your story about JW is correct, do you not think that is a major reason he chooses to go downwind?

But Joe didn't go downwind on any of the three times we flew in the same group. Joe goes where he detects signs of lift. Been watching Joe fly for over 10 years.

I thought this was supposed to be a thread about novice contest fliers, not experts. Novice fliers shouldn't go downwind looking for lift until they get more experience and know what they are capable of doing under under various wind conditions.

[ICTHRMLS]

Just like Badger said, it's one of those contest strategies that makes things more interesting (like intentionally circling in sink). Adam
In all of the good information presented here one thing is missing..... call it what you will - the deek factor, gamesmanship, deceit..... there does indeed exist strategy that has little to do with reading air. Circling in sink is classic to draw unsuspecting pilots to you and then bail out. Granted you need to know where the lift is to pull this off but sometimes showing everyone the strongest lift is not good "strategy". There is something rewarding in hearing other timers telling their pilot to go to your air.... good or bad but to have a gaggle struggle along in sink while you slip away.... pricelesss. :D

Then there is the fine art of sandbagging..... delaying a launch until conditions are more favorable. Funny thing is - it is a lost art. Most contests are not geared for it. The advent of the open flight window COMPLETELY eliminates the true sandbag and contests like the Nats are set up to penalize you harshly for not being ready for any reason. But the old flight line call up presented plenty of opportunity.... one of my favorites was to have the timer "accidentally" drop the winch line ring just prior to hook up and having it snap back and snarl the retriever line - good for another 30 seconds of air reading time. ;)

Ah, the good old days.......... :D

[ICTHRMLS]

I thought this was supposed to be a thread about novice contest fliers, not experts.
This keeps popping up and I disagree..... this thread is about expert pilots sharing contest techniques for all to read - the novices are welcome to read and ask questions as stated in the opening post. Some so called experts might learn something too..... what the heck. :rolleyes:

[CHARLIE BRITT 7]

I'm with you Chuck, going downwind is for very experinced flyers with super eyesight and knowing where the lift is. To chase someone downwind from launch hight who is in lift is risky, that guy is going up with the bubble the base (bottom)of which is probably above you by the time you get there so all you get is a double sink.
My 2 cents :D
Charlie :p

[CHARLIE BRITT 7]

Come on Brian, Tell us how you do it, you get your time nine times out of ten???? What's your words of wisdom. :confused:
Charlie :o

[BrianSmith]

It is very simple..Stay out of the sink..I refuse to fly where there is sink in a contests. :D But sometimes that is all there is. The one out of 10 is when the sink is "everywhere" Brian

[ChuckA]

Brian Smith also never sandbags. He is always one of the first to launch when a round opens at open winch contests.

I never fly longer than 10 minutes in a thermal. When the model reaches enough altitude to be reasonably certain of beng able to stay up for 10 minutes, I bail out and go back upwind to launch altitude and start over. If I don't find another thermal, I set up for a 2 minute drill for landing practice. I also try to hit a spot on time for every landing. The spot doesn't have to be a landing tape, Sometimes I thow my cap out for a spot or even use a bare spot on the ground. There is always something to use for an aiming point.

[ejett]

All:

Regarding the comments about this thread being for novices. Jon started this thread I think because he and I had an email discussion about my attending the Tullahoma contest next month. I have never competed in a contest and thus I think this thread was born.

But, I don't think any of the discussion so far is discouraging to a novice (er, rank beginner, like me); the more we learn about contesting the more we are likely to participate.

You guys keep on posting your dialog. It has been really the best reading on this subject I have ever seen. Thanks everyone for your input here and DON"T STOP NOW! Great stuff.

EJ

[Soarbird]

Well said ejett. Although not a rank beginner as I have been flying for around a year now, I would say that I am a novice when it comes to contests.

The information and tips in this thread are really helpful and broaden one's outlook on this great hobby. Already tried a few of the tips this weekend with some working for me and others not. Those that did'nt just need to be practiced more. Those that did kept me airborne long enough to have a nice stiff neck today.

Great thread, great contributions and interesting debate. Keep it up.

Soarbird

[RSCherry]

Great thread. When I first started contest flying, I found that having one of the expert class flyers time for me was more valuable than anything else (still is, actually). They know how to time, know how to read the air and can provide you with tips on your flying style, setting up for landings, etc. I learned more from a few contests with an expert timer than in all my years of sport flying combined! Even if you don't intend to fly many contests, the advice you get at one is worth it!

If you think you are interested in competing regularly, it really pays to practice using the format that your club competes with. You really need it to be second nature during the contest. Practice flying on cloudy and windy days- the contest will be held unless it's pouring rain!

Also be absolutely sure you have optimized your sailplane- CG, trims, throws, elevator-flap compensations, etc. Don't settle for "that's close enough"- strive to have your plane flawlessly set up and perfectly optimized for your style of flying. There are lots of good articles out there on sailplane set up.

[nuevo]

The Purpose Driven Practice

One-man Contest

In order to get used to the idea of contest flying, how about holding your own contest? Even if you fly alone. Sound weird? Sure! All I am talking about is having a countdown timer (i.e. Talking Timer), a piece of paper, and a pencil. Oh, and you need a landing target too.

Here’s the idea. Use your hi-start, winch, whatever. Fly 5 times in a row, and see if you can make 6 minutes every time you fly. Write down your times on the card. Write down the landing results, too. Just guess how far you are from the spot, and write down the number of feet from the spot. You don’t have to compute a “score”, just write down the results on the card.

Just the self-induced pressure to land on a clock (if you make your 6 minutes), and trying to force yourself to make a landing will improve your contest skills.

You only get 5 launches. If you get a time of 1:33, write that down. Consider that a sub-optimal round. :rolleyes:

If you fly with a group, and don’t want to embarrass yourself, don’t bother telling anyone what you’re up to. It’s no big deal. I want to get you to thinking about doing the tasks, similar to what will be asked of you at a contest.

Here are some other ideas, to make your practice time more helpful to improving your contest skills.

Fly a lot. This can never hurt.

Fly the same plane.

Don’t bother getting “the bug” for the latest plane, radio, servos, whatever. If you are fairly new to contests, don’t worry about it. If you fly the same plane a lot, you get to know that plane. You know what you can get away with, how to land, how fast it can go, how to launch, etc. Knowing (and I mean really knowing your plane) is a big advantage at a contest.

There are lots of pilots that change planes every 6 months or so. You don’t have to be one of them. I believe your skills will improve faster flying the same old plane, rather than changing to a new one. Intermediate pilots sometimes tend begin changing planes, after they have attained some measure of skill. If you are observant, you will see some pilots with lots of money to spend, but maybe not the skills to go with it. That’s ok. That’s their choice. No problem with that. As a contest newby, I suggest you stick with one plane for quite a while.

Yeah, I know. I’m starting to sound like your mother. Boring.

Don’t just fly around

Fly with a purpose. For example, what if you get in a big thermal and are skied out at 2 minutes into your flight. You can float around for 8 more minutes to a 10 minute task. (Actually, at a contest, I suggest doing exactly that). But for practice, try this. Put the spoilers out, or otherwise safely bring your plane back down to launch height. Now, make yourself go find more lift and see if you can climb out again. The mental work of finding lift, coring it, and climbing out are the real skills you want to build.

Did you see that?

Maybe you’ve found a thermal and are twice launch height. Did you just feel the wind shift? Or maybe you noticed a tree in your area start blowing around, while none others are doing so. Assume there is lift caused by this event, fly over there, and see if you can find that thermal. Learn to notice changes around you while you are flying. Again, fly with a purpose. I often do exactly this. During play time on the weekends, I may notice a wind shift. I might even be in good lift. Sometimes, I will leave it and run across the field, just to see what’s there. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Of course, at the real contest, don’t throw away any altitude. Keep the altitude (or weak lift) you have, and be bored. Let that clock keep ticking…


Weather

Guess what? On contest day, you get what you get. Wind, rain, clouds, sunshine, whatever. Sometimes, an afternoon shower pops up. The contest will be stopped for an hour. Guess what? They start right up after the rain stops. Have you ever tried to find lift after a local shower?

Go out and fly when you have the time. Even if the weather is not perfect. Maybe there is a complete cloud cover and overcast. Go fly anyway. Some days I have flown like this, there was plenty of lift to go around. On cloudy days, the lift is more subtle. Try it out and see how smooth you can fly under these conditions.

The biggest variable many of us see is the wind. Many people are afraid to fly in the wind. Try flying on a windy day. If the wind is gusty, I’d say save your plane for another day. Gusty days can be dangerous landing. The plane can get slammed into the ground with no warning, when on landing approach. If it’s not too gusty, go fly. Find out how your launch changes with the wind. How about the landings? A lot of folks land short in the wind. Try more landings. Learn to adjust your technique to compensate for the wind.

How about finding and staying in thermals in the wind. Thermals are harder to find, smaller, and they move with the wind. Imagine a thermal to be a slowly rising large balloon. It will drift with the wind. When you circle, let your plane drift with the wind. The best advice I can give, is to try to maintain a constant bank angle as you turn.

Don’t be afraid to fly in the wind. If you never fly in the wind, don’t count on winning a trophy if the wind happens to be blowing on contest days.

Flying style

Think about how you might adjust your flying style to different weather conditions. Things like land with more airspeed in the wind. Fly smooth, and with minimal control inputs in very light lift conditions.

Summary

In summary, put a purpose to your flying time. Your skills will improve.



Does all this practice sound like drudgery and work to you? That's ok. :p Maybe contests are not your idea of fun. ;)

[BrianSmith]

I must say this is one of the most informative and best written threads on R/C Groups.com... Read and Heed..My 2 cents about that..Brian Smith

[Gliderguy]

And inspiring. :)
I've only done a little contesting with DLGs but have wanted to get into TD for a while now. I don't usually have much free time so I'll probably be doing that one man contest thing (maybe two) a lot. I do find my flying improves when I'm pushed by being in a contest, even with just one other person. I don't have a TD plane right now but was thinking of getting a Topaz (it'll cover RES to).

So if I'm understanding this correct, alot of what is being said here is "just find a plane and learn how to use it", watch, learn and practice, practice, practice as if you were in a contest?

Thanks again for this thread.

[mike85gn]

Just a quicky, around here we don't have too many competitions but I do try to work hard on thermal duration and flying precision with some of my sailplanes. I frequently fly near grass that comes up to my waist. I find it is very helpful for reading the wind. A steady breeze should move the grass consistently in one direction, but occasionally, you can see some patches where the tops of the blades of grass look like their spinning. I like to launch , then come 180º to pick up speed and pass by those areas again. If I have built up enough speed, I can catch the thermal before it is dissipated. Because they are having a noticeable effect at low altitude (on the grass), they are typically quite strong. It takes some of the guesswork out of the flying. Reading what your environment is doing is more effective sometimes than watching the wingtips or nose for a little lift, and it can give you a bit of an edge on days where a lot of people are flying and not having major luck with thermals. One outing we had some friendly competition for duration and there wasn't much out there, guys were flying over the field trying to stretch the flight out as long as possible. I was over in the taller grass and happened to notice a swirling pattern, and it turned out to be the deciding factor in victory.

[ejett]

Anyway, that was long, but hopefully useful.

* some of us are evil enough to circle in sink when we know we've made our times.

That IS evil!! :rolleyes: You won't catch me circling in sink on purpose. I have been known to circle in sink, but not for long and never on purpose.

EJ

[Soarbird]

Still a great thread and again used quite a few of the tips this last weekend with great success both upwind and downwind. However, now that we are having more success in going up, what are the best strategies for coming down?

A few of us have R/E only models and getting them down from spec height can be scary. Very hesitant to simply go for a shallow dive. It's almost impossible to judge the angle and airspeed in a clear sky and I have seen more than one pair of wings either start a major flutter and/or eventually clap hands. :eek:

Invariably, the R/E models are not terribly strong so what manouvre is recommended for reasonably rapid height loss without placing heavy loads on the airframe? BTW funny how things change. Before subscribing to this thread, losing height was never a problem :rolleyes:

I agree that fitting spoilers/airbrakes would be a good route to follow but assume that these are not fitted.

[AustinTatious]

No spoilers or flaps and no dive is tricky!

Id say you BESTbet is to start down sooner than a minuite before your target time... maybee a STEEP BANK pulling lots of UP...for instance.. almost 90 degrees! OF course, you WILL get blown downwind so you ahve to keep that in mind..

heck, dont listen to me... I put in the reflex and get to VNE as quickly as possible and when the time is right, throw out 90 degrees of flap! too easy :) I need to really learn to fly and get an RES ship!

[nuevo]

Soarbird,

You are correct. Going fast to get down is not the safest way to get down. A lot of bad things can happen to the plane by flying too fast.

I had my first plane at "tiny speck" height and did not know how to get it down. I was blessed by the appearance of a more experienced club member, who aided me.

My recommendation is to apply full up elevator, full rudder at the same time, and keep it there. With a mode-2 stick, this means putting the stick in the bottom left/right corner, and holding it there. The plane will enter a spiral and start coming down. It will look like a leaf spiralling downward. Try it out before you get too high. Because of the full-up elevator, the plane will not fly too fast. This is an excellent technique to bring an RES plane down.

As an aside, the above technique may not work too well on an aileron plane, with little or no dihedral. For an aileron/flap equiped plane, the safest way to bring a plane down is to first apply full flaps, then point the nose straight down. The plane will not overspeed with flaps deployed.

The other technique I recommend is fly to a completely different part of the sky. Get out of that lift. This has also happened to me before, as I was in a very large area of strong lift and the plane was getting smaller quickly.

If you have the skill, I have found a way to get my plane down is to fly inverted. I like to fly inverted, just for the fun of it, as more skill is required to maintain proper airspeed. One of my buddies can thermal that way. :rolleyes: I find I just end up coming down. :o

[Soarbird]

Hi Jon,

Will certainly try that this weekend as last Saturday was sweaty palms syndrome trying to get down in one piece. Took about five minutes to come down and then amazed myself, and every one else, with a 1m landing.

Did move to another part of the sky to get away from the lift but was so high that I would'nt have known if I was inverted or not.

Thanks for the help and AustinTatious, I got to get me one of them ships!!!

[Soarbird]

Hi All,

Thanks to all of you for your advice on getting down from great heights and guess what? Your advice worked really well as the plane enters into quite a tight spiral and loses altitude reasonably quickly. :D Just letting go of everything levels her out with very little control movement needed.

Just one question on this method though. What stresses are placed on the airframe during this type of manouvre?

Really enjoy this thread and hopefully will be able to put all that I have learned into practice over the next six weeks as we have 3 competitons lined up.

[AustinTatious]

As long as you Hold full up in the spiral and keep the airspeed low, there is not very much stress at all on the plane.

[Radian]

Alright, there has been a lot of good things said in this thread.

I'm hope to provoke some more thoughts on this.

What about your landing techniques?

Where do you like to stand to view your landing relative to the landing mark? When do you like to enter your "pattern" for the landing? What is your "pattern?" Do you try to bring the plane in on your right or left? Why? Do you prefer to come in high and hot with spoilers and flaps at the last second or do you prefer a slow gentle glide in with subtle modulation of your spoilers or flaps? Do you crouch down and get close to the landing mark for a more personal view or do you stand off and maybe to the side?

Obviously, there are many different techniques. All are personal preferences. :)

What I'm asking is to hear about YOUR preferences and WHY you land the way you do. Funny thing about these questions is that many of you probably never really gave much thought about why you do what you do.

Radian

[nuevo]

What a great set of questions ! I'll try to contribute later on.

[nuevo]

I have given a lot of thought to my landing pattern. This is the area of my contest flying I continue to evaluate, critique, and work on the most. In other words, it’s the area I think I struggle with the most. Last weekend, I did almost no thermal flying. Almost all of my launches were very low, and I immediately set a 1-minute clock to practice landings.

I started with what was described in Dave Thornburg’s “Old Buzzard” book. That technique describes standing upwind of the landing spot. Going over your shoulder heading downwind at 30 seconds and at about “telephone pole” height. Sometime later, start a crosswind leg, then an upwind leg for final. Losing some altitude as you go.

I flew that pattern for a few years. Several years ago, I decided that 30 seconds was too long. The plane can cover a lot of ground in that time, and some of the fields I compete on are not wide open. So I changed to a 20 second pattern. I don’t have much of a cross-wind leg anymore, either. Just kind of a wide turn from downwind to upwind.

I figure it this way. If I have the plane approximately at the right height and right place at 20 seconds, how far off on the clock can I be?

Fred Sage put it very well in one of his articles on landing. The landing task is a series of “windows” you must fly through. As time remaining approaches zero, the smaller each window gets. This “window” means a place, a time, and a particular speed. If you’re flying 50 mph at 5 seconds left, there’s not much chance of you burning off all of that speed and make a high point landing at zero on the clock. For example, at 4 minutes remaining, you can be at any height, and almost anyplace in the sky. Assuming I am not scratching for lift, at 3 minutes, I like to be over the field or fairly near it. At 2 minutes, I like to be at launch height or 1/3 less. At 1 minute, I want to be maybe 200’ high and not have too high of an airspeed. At 45 seconds, I want to be upwind of myself and getting close to 100’ high. I also start planning my passes, so that I can go over my shoulder at 20 seconds. At this time, I am watching my altitude and airspeed very close. At 20 seconds, I “enter the pattern” by passing over a line crossing the landing tape.

I start my final turn at approximately the same time, but I do adjust that final turn point depending on the plane and the winds. If I enter my pattern correctly, and plan my final turn correct, I am almost always within 2 seconds of the target time on landing. This is not good enough on times to win a national or world contest, but good enough to win at most others.

I line myself up with the spot and drive the plane right towards myself. I have heard of others standing off to the side slightly. Some say the perspective is better. I have never tried that.

Glide slope? For me, that all depends on the plane. A faster heavier plane (to me) requires a longer flatter approach. With a steep approach, you cannot burn off the extra energy and get the plane slowed down. The slower the plane is on approach, the more time you have to make final adjustments to get the nose on the spot. (Note: windy days dictate a faster airspeed to overcome turbulence) With a very light plane and/or one with very large flaps, a “less disciplined” final approach can be tolerated. In other words, you can get away with more because the plane will stop. I can make higher approaches, and the flaps can slow the plane down in an instant.

I flew in a contest a few weeks ago. Winds were over 10 mph all day. I saw a lot of very short landings. Here’s one area most contest pilots are lacking. They do not know how to compensate for the wind when landing. This includes getting to the spot on time, as well as not dropping full flaps when way downwind of the landing spot. All I can say here, is get out and do it. Pay attention to what’s happening, and try something new. Practice.

As far as approach style, I’ve seen some fly the plane straight on a shallow slope directly into the pin. No down elevator at all. Just fly the plane into the spot. Others fly low and level over the pin and then drop the nose at the last second. For me, what technique I use depends on characteristics of the plane I was flying. My last plane, I had trouble landing consistently, partially due to the planes behavior when flying extremely slow. I finally figured out a landing technique that helped a lot.

Oh, and years ago, I used to perform a hard dork and slam the plane into the ground. I don’t do that much anymore. I now think of a hard dork with the nose into the ground as a sign that the pilot (me included) did not manage his energy properly.

I have been flying an Ava all summer. That plane (spoilers only) requires a whole different landing technique. So I’m learning how to land all over again. ;)

Folks, What do you do? Why? I’m hoping to learn from others, too!

[FWFlyer]

First, I want to go back several pages of replys to the duties of a timer. This may not be a responsibility of the timer, but you'll know that you have a great one if he is willing to hold his hand up for 5 minutes to block the sun from your eyes while you work that thermal that is too close to the blinding afternoon sun. :D

Second, and more important to newbie TD contestants is a caution about landings. DO NOT SACRIFICE YOUR PLANE FOR A FEW LANDING POINTS!

When I first attended contests years ago, I did much damage to my stick-built glider trying to land for points. I watched the guys with strong composite planes land sometimes fast and hard to stick a landing. I tried this too, only to bust a nose or break a wing mount and end the day early. :( I learned after a few such incidents that it is better to lose the points on a landing and live to fly another round that day. A contest is not the place to learn what your plane can do in a hard landing.

[loic_debisschop]

What is, briefly, your landing technique with the AVA ? ( I've got one too) I'm a TD contestant in france and first thing i would say about landing is: If you're landing earlier than expected, don't try to gain the last few second by thermaling in nothing, and don't neglect the minimal path for landing (20 sec). DO NOT SACRIFICE YOUR LANDING POINTS FOR A FEW FLYING POINTS!
Then, i would say that i vote FOR the crosswing leg, because, to me, it't the part of the path were you can easily adjust landing. I mean: during this part, the speed and the slope are obvious ( no wind effect and side view is easier to evaluate speed), so you can adjust it.If you're late, you can shorten the crosswind leg, and if you're earlier you can make it longer.

For final approach, I would say you need half efficiency of the brakes, which have to be set to half throw of the stick. This allows to correct the slope. If you have full brake and if the plane is too high, or no brake and to low, you won't be able to reach landing point !!
Nose have to be down at every time and elevator compensation perfectly set. To me, this compensation works, i mean: no effect on fuselage attitude when deploying spoiler, only for a given speed. This means that, for other speeds you'll have to compensate yourself, wich is harder to manage. I would say the ideal speed for landing is 30 % higher than stall speed. ( same speed as best glide when spoilers retracted)
The last 30% extra speed must be consumed by complete deployement of spoilers 2 seconds before landing. Another last thing: a mistake i still make is to aim the landing target. This is fine for windy days, but for calm days it's safer to aim 2 or 3 meters before the taget.
Feel free to send comments and remarks

Loïc

[Hostage-46]

What a terrific thread! Starting this season I decided to have a go at the contest thing. For all of the usual excuses, my preparation consisted of a few hours of flying every other week or so with the local flyers. As a new guy, my focus has been on learning how to launch off a winch, a new thing for me. Consequently if a winch was not available, I took a pass thinking that winch time was the most important thing. When I did fly, I'd launch and go find lift, looking to stay up as long as possible, landing when I either ran out of lift or got tired of looking up. The good news is that I can now launch with competence, not the highest or most spectactular mind you, but competent. And I can find lift and stay in it, as well as spot sink and get out of it. Until this morining, my landing was what you do after staying airborn as long as possible.

At my last contest, my 3rd in total, I found myself more comfortable with the environment, and achieved my goal, not to come in last (like I did on my first showing) :). I made a classic sport flyer/wannabe contest flyer showing. Decent launches, made times when most others did, fell short with the pack as well. And then there was the landing pattern, I was behind the airplane, no planning, and more importantly, not comfortable with a new model in the landing pattern. Figures, as I hadn't been practicing landings!

So this thread came along at a great time, helping me to concude the obvious; if you want to be any good at this thing, you have to practice.

This morining I grabbed the highstart at sunrise and got to work for a little FCLP. My goal this time was to establish basic timing and landing pattern parameters. Sure enough I was able to develop a consistant pattern.

- Abeam at about 30 ft, flaps half, timer on
- Drive downwind 10 seconds, make base turn at about 15 ft,
- Final at about 6-8 feet with an 8-10 second groove time.

I flew 8 passes, launch height with my highstart takes me to 2:30 dead air time or so. I wanted to start above pattern altitude so that I could practice getting to pattern entry on speed and altitude.

By flying through the gates, all of my passes placed me within 6 feet of my intended spot, 3 were within 1 foot of my mark, more importantly, I found that time from abeam to touchdown was 29 to 31 seconds each time. Suddenly it occurs to me that if I can get to the abeam at 30 to go, I'm in good shape.

Where this really helped was in energy management. Once within the parameters of a proper landing pattern, I found myself able to focus on the model and determine the energy state. I learned more about the performance of my model in the landing pattern this morning than I have all season prior to this. I was even able to figure out the 45 degree wind shift and adjusted my pattern to compensate.

I may only be able to fly on the weekends, but I figure with a highstart I can easly get in 10 - 15 passes in a two hour session. Next time I'll take out a my runway tape/measuring stick to emulate the club's modified runway landing.

I don't think the guys at the club need to worry about me for a while, but I will tell you that every time I launch, there will be a task and a tape...

[ejett]

I participated in my first ever contest Saturday with at the NASF contest. Met lots of folks that I knew of, but had never seen.

I went into the contest with the following goals:

Meet new folks.
Fly all rounds.
Not break my plane.
Finish last or better.

I managed to accomplish all of these goals and had a marvelous time. I found that I need to spend more time flying in the wind and I have to do like Dan and do some purpose practicing on landings.

Special thanks to Ron Sinclair who helped me in the contest. He was the CD for the event and still had time for a newbie.

Also to Chuck Anderson who let me hitch with him to the sandwich shop for lunch.

And "Charlie Britt 7" for letting me time for him in the contest.

Also to Jon Stone, who encouraged me to come and be a part of the fun and so graciously has spent the time to set up this thread. It is the GREATEST!!

All of the folks I had a chance to meet and fellowship with are just great guys (and gals).

Thanks again everyone.

EJ

[CHARLIE BRITT 7]

Hi EJ
I was in attendance at the NASF contest also and thus got a chance to meet EJ in person.
That was a real thrill after commucating with him on the LiftZone for the past few months. And thanks for timing me, i picked this round 5 to pull my dum-dum for the day by trying to fly with my spoiler half up. I didn't realize it untill i was approaching the landing area, cost me 1st place.
More on the contest later.
Charlie :p :o

[ChuckA]

I participated in my first ever contest Saturday with at the NASF contest. Met lots of folks that I knew of, but had never seen.

I went into the contest with the following goals:

Meet new folks.
Fly all rounds.
Not break my plane.
Finish last or better.

I managed to accomplish all of these goals and had a marvelous time. I found that I need to spend more time flying in the wind and I have to do like Dan and do some purpose practicing on landings.
EJ

You picked a good contest for your first one. Huntsville runs a relaxed 5 round open winch contest that allows more time for talking between round and lets you teaming up with an expert flier. Man-on-man contests such as the Nats do not allow you to team up with one flier for the entire contest. Not that it's a bad idea but not helpful when you are still a novice flier. Open winch contests such as run at Huntsville, Lexington Ky, and Tullahoma are much more relaxed and more conducive to the learning process.

[ejett]

This is what I flew Saturday in Open Class. :confused: :eek: It's had a pretty hard life since I got it; Blockhead, my pilot, has ejected on me a couple of times.

I did much better than I expected to do, but finished last in the class. Oh well, LESSON - make sure you have the right scorecard!!

EJ

[Smoking Joe]

EJ: Is that an Aquila, if so it is one of the nicest I have ever seen. I used to have one, it had a black lacquer fuselage, transparent orange wings and tail feathers. Did it in the old alma mater colors of McGill Institute here in Mobile, but yours is magnificent. Joe

[ejett]

Yes sir. It is a standard class Aquila. Built and originally owned by Randy Smith of VA. I bought it from him and he did a superb job on this plane.

This plane has pearl red and white on top of flying surfaces and black on the bottom. He did a good job with the trim work. Fuse is white monokote.

I was building one at the time and I jumped on it when it was posted. Nobody bid against me and I got it at the fairly high opening bid price.

Anyway, I have flown it lots in the last 3 months and really like it. It has all the idiosyncracies that Aquilas are known for and it is built totally stock as far as I can tell.

In the meantime, my Aquila build has stalled at the fuse painting stage. My first attempt has been less than glorious so I am going to try to redo it.


We still need to get together and fly while I am somewhat flexible with my schedule.


EJ

[nuevo]

I came across a useful article about Thermal Hunting, by Mark Howard.

http://www.rmsadenver.com/lift.htm

[loic_debisschop]

Very interesting article !
I saw 3 other articles on the same subject:
http://www.slnt.org/articles.htm
"Thoughts on thermal soaring"
Loïc

[Terror Dactyl]

It is amazing what can happen to hook someone on TD. I gave a friend a CIRRUS to put together and fly. He got it built with the RE but taped the spoilers shut. He did the maiden toss and I made sure that it was not going to be weird and then he took trhe TX for a toss from me right before the HAWKS monthly contest (home of the Houston Hawk). He has flown some powered stuff for a while but this will seem like the guy that plays golf for the first time and hits a hole in one. The contest was a man on man (ten min with a seven min precision tie breaker and double elimination) for open birds (there were three of us with two meter's) the likes of a BoT, Sailair, Houston Hawk, and Aguilia (as you can see dont know the proper spelling for them so you can probably figure it out) the total number of birds in the was ten I think.

He did not lose till the end of the winners bracket finals and lost to only the first and second place winners which means that the first day he ever flew his own glider he placed third in a ten pilot contest with a bird that was two classes down in size.

He is so hooked that he will be trying to fly in the rain next Sat.

I say this to thank you guys for the info that is being given here and I hope that it will help even a little to get me able to place higher than him in the next contest, but i am showing him this thread and I guess that will even us up again, oh well

Keep the great info coming and it is not keeping us from contesting when ever possible.

[gdjsky01]

I was in a contest this past weekend. I gave Larry Jolly, the winner in expert class and RES class, a run for his money. NOT! :D

I was DLBF. It's the first contest I have finished. Finished as in I got points in every round. I have been in three before that, but for whatever reason, I did not complete them. George Voss, who was visiting from Oklahoma, timed for me. I learned quite a bit even if I made a few mistakes on the sticks. Other than my own dumb thumbs here are a few lessons I learned last weekend: (and I think GV would agree)


Know thy plane. My timer was unfamiliar with my plane. At his urging I went a bit farther away to chase lift than I should have with a crunchie. I made it back, but gave up a lot of altitude for energy to do so. I should have said I was getting 'a bit far'. Once he understood the plane's limitations, he never had me try that again. :D

Know thy field. I've flown there more than a few times. One flight I drifted downwind to stay with a thermal. To be honest I felt I could make my time (or make more of my time :o ) hanging out where I was because I'd done it before over that area of the field. Well the thermal I was in broke loose as it drifted downwind and dissipated. I fell way short. Again, none of that is his fault. In some ways he was flying his plane on his field. And he flies in much windier conditions normally.


One thing I can say, having someone who competes a lot as your timer is invaluable knowledge. Stuff that is hard to write up. I learned a lot... especially on trimming for almost dead calm conditions as well as paying attention to the slight breezes that come through. And the birds. And the other competitors.

I learned a lot. Still... if only I had stayed put in that one thermal... ah how many of you can say "if only...":D
Jeff

PS: If you get the chance, George seems like a great guy, do fly with him. He really enjoys it and it shows.

[davidleitch]

Flew in four electric glider 7 cell competitions here in Australia this year, plus a regular postal competition and the rcgroups.com comp F5J extreme. There's a thread on the last one in the electric gliders forum.

What did I learn:

1 Consistency is the key. A reasonable flyer will not have too much trouble winning one round, but making an accurate landing and making your time every time is ever so much harder.

2 All the landing practice in the world at your favourite field with no wind, is completely useless when trying to land at a strange field in a strong wind.

3 Confidence, hopefully justified, matters. If you fly like you are nervous your results will show that.

Contests are great for measuring progress over the course of a couple of years.

4. Contests take a lot of work to organise, score, and post reports after. Rember to assist your contest director as much as possible. Consider holding a contest at your field. The more contests the better.

dave

[nuevo]

Excellent points dave. Not much I can add. Well said.

[parrothead]

Thanks for all the info guys! I'm just getting back into R/C with a Spirit ARF and this sure sounds like fun :cool: . I had a Wanderer many years ago, but I flew almost exclusively at Torrey Pines on the slope. My one and only lime thermalling was with a different plane, but it was fun, too. I just moved out to Las Vegas and I'm going to join the Las Vegas Soaring Club this weekend. There aren't a whole lot of slopes around here, so it looks like I'm going to have to get really good at thermal flying if I want to stay up for over an hour like I did all the time at Torrey Pines :p ! The club's flying site is very large and very flat, so I think I might get a bit bored just flying around. Those one or two person contests sound like fun and who knows, I might just have to go visit my parents in San Diego when the Torrey Pines Gulls are holding a contest :) ! Happy flying!

[BrianSmith]

FLASH ************ I just saw/heard by E-mail that Jon stone won the first day of the mid south soaring championships, and when his LSF voucher is submitted for approval he will be the next Level 5 .. Hooray Jon... What a great event for one of soarings nicest guys..Brian Smith

[nuevo]

I'm re-posting a few articles written by world-class RC glider pilots. The discussion topic is flying DLG contests in the wind. The techniques apply to all TD flying. Read carefully.


From Phil Barnes to the SALglider group on June 10, 2005

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Wilson" <ben@thelocust.org>

> As an aside - I do still wonder why no one tried to poke out front and
> look for lift upwind. Were there no indications of lift, or was it just
> that the headwinds were so great that your flying time wouldn't allow
> you to search as much air? I was to busy making bad launches to notice :)

The BASS (baltimore Area Soaring Society) field has tall trees on a couple sides and is a relatively small piece of real estate. This is pretty typical of east coast fields. On such fields, the game is always played on the downwind tree line. The guys you see launching from the upwind or midfield area and staying away from the trees are usually the sportsmen level fliers or those who are more concerned with keeping their plane out of trhe trees than with winning the contest. It is possible, on some occasions, to pick up lift from the middle of the field but that is far more difficult to do and any lift that begins from the middle of the field will, very soon, hit the tree line and really take off. So why not just launch to the tree line and wait for it there? You can get in a little slope soaring while you wait :-) It is also easier to read wind vectors when flying downwind. Prior to launch you just look at the little wind streamer on your transmitter antenna (you have one don't you?) and launch to the part of the tree line being favored by the current wind direction. The wind is blowing in that direction because a thermal is lifting off the tree line over there.

On the day in question when I timed for Ben, the tree line was being very kind to anyone that dared to launch and quickly transition to a spot just above the first line of trees. The problem that Ben experienced was that he did not quickly and efficiently transition to the tree line. Instead he was doing a launch that took the plane away from the tree line and then he only flew a slow, indirect path towards the tree line. By the time he got close to the trees he was either below the tree tops or uncomfortably close to the tree tops. His launch was easily high enough to do tree line surfing but he needed to work on his ability to do directional launching and efficient transition to a particular downwind place in the sky.

There are times when the tree line is not working. Sometimes the sink just moves in and quashes the tree line action. An expert flyer will always look for signs that the tree line is working before launching that way. Wind shifts are usually a pretty reliable signal. A hard blow towards the tree line that does not change direction probably tells you no more than the fact that the wind is blowing. If you are waiting for the round to start and you see a sudden shift in what was a steady wind direction then you have some good information to work on. It is usually a thermal that has pulled the wind direction over to a new direction and you would launch to the tree line in that direction. The best signal of all would be if the wind slows down for a while and then suddenly picks up again. This is a sure sign that a thermal has formed upwind and has passed overhead or nearby. The direction of the new wind after the thermal passes will indicate which side of the field the thermal is on. In some cases the thermal will be strong enough to completely stop the wind. When that happens you can look at thermal streamers or other wind direction indications to see which way the slight breeze gets pulled. When the thermal streamer lays down, the thermal is upwind. When the thermal streamer starts to get pulled sideways you then know which side of the field the thermal is approaching from. As the thermal approaches and passes the field, a new, strong breeze will blow in the
direction that the thermal is passing.

Phil

[nuevo]

Here's another post on the same topic.



From Tom Kiesling to the SALglider group on June 10, 2005

--- In SALglider@yahoogroups.com, Charles Frey <charles@c...> wrote:
> So then my question is, why is it so hard to pick up a thermal upwind? I
> understand why you're saying about reading the wind, but I'll fly back and
> forth across the entire width of the field and never do much good. Are
> the thermals forming right there on the field, and so they actully never
> existed way upwind? Or that any thermal upwind has probably already
> broken away and will be too high to catch?
>
> -Charles

Charles,

Picking up upwind thermals depends on the field and the surrounding terrain. On the East Coast, the field you are flying on is usually the only one nearby. This I think is the case with the BASS field that Ben was talking about. In this case the field you are on is typically the best thermal generator. So, by default if there is wind, the thermal will be down wind of the field. If there is a prevailing wind and you feel no wind (or less wind) that means that the thermal is developing on the field and will be moving down wind shortly. If there is no prevailing wind, then the wind you feel will generally be pointing toward a thermal.

Flying on a small field can teach you a lot about the way thermals generate. On a calm day you can feel a thermal develop. It starts getting warm and stuffy. What is interesting about this is that you can launch and not go up. This is because the thermal has not developed enough energy to break free of the ground and rise. I don't know what the technical/meteorological term is for this, but it feels like a surface tension kind of thing. You may hear people say the thermal "breaks" and then say something like "there it goes". This happens when the thermal generates enough energy to break free of the ground and rise. This is when you want to launch. If you are already in the air and you are flying in that hot stagnent air of a developing thermal, you can expedite its release by manually tripping
it. If your timer is any good, they will have a towel or something to wave in the air and run around in big circles. I have heard of this working (really!).

If there is a wind, as the thermal generates it gets blown down wind. If it doesn't have enough energy to rise it will slide along the ground until it hits something (like a tree line). The object it hits is enough to trip it and allow it to rise. You have probably seen someone slowly circle their model down wind maintaining altitude, and when they reach the tree line, they start to climb. This isn't just a slope effect, it is the thermal being tripped.

So to answer your question, on a small isolated field, yes, the thermals are primarily generated there.

On a large field, like at the NATS or Poway, the thermals have enough time to generate the required energy to break free without a trip, even if it is a little bit windy. So in this case you can catch upwind thermals (note that these are still generated on the same field it is just that the field is big enough for the thermals to release upwind). This is where you really have to pay attention to what the air is doing over time. By making a mental note of how long it was since the last lull in the wind will give you an idea of whether or not you should chase the down wind thermal, or punch up wind looking for the next. This is something you have to practice and experiment with. You have to really focus and pay attention to detail. Remember on a large field there can be many thermals effecting the wind vectors. On a small field there are usually only one or two thermals at one time. With experience and focus, you can get good at estimating the location and strength of the thermals as well as how many are in the immediate area.

Of course this discussion is focused on HL. The same principals apply to winch launched stuff, you just have access to more fields and finding upwind thermals can be easier.

Hope this helps

Tom

[nuevo]

After a lot of digging, and a few emails with the publisher, I found an article that explains the topic. I suggest reading it a few times.

Courtesy of Kiona Publishing (S&E Modeler, now Quiet Flyer).

http://www.kionapublishing.com/library/product_info.php/products_id/407


BTW, Kiona has generously published almost all of it's old articles online. Visit http://www.kionapublishing.com/library/

[davidleitch]

Jon

Thanks for the Kiona article. I've now had an ephifany on the concept of relative vector. Sitting in the office here in a Sydney winter day, I'm now getting antsy looking forward to experimenting with this on the weekend.

[gcouger]

Terminals over Hot Concert.

I know were there are 80 acres of concrete the made up of apron for a WWII training base. In the summer on an August afternoon the with 10 knot winds the concrete can reach 130 f. A one or two hundred gallons of black paint made of carbon black bad milk from a local dairy and clay could make a good sized black patch that would get 10 or 15 degrees hotter on a a surfce 500 feet in altitued on a 105 degree day.

Would a spot black paint like that or the 80 acres of concrete make reliable enough lift all day to keep a sail plane airborne in a 3 to 5 mile radius of the airport using
GPS positioning and other data sent back from the plane when it was out of site. for over 12 hours with the help of eclectic motor.

I know it would need a vriometer and need a plane that was designed more like free a flight plane so it would not require much control to maintain efficient flight. It would also need to tend to turn into lift when it encounter it not turn away as most sail panes do. Much of that could be accomplished with simi antonymous controls that held the plane steady an did it best to get out of sinking air on it own and stay in rising air when it could. Some sensors and a small CPU could make the control response smoother and reduce the drag by using less control surface deflection to maintain altitude and heading then any but possibly the very best pilots do.

Gordon Couger
Stillwater, OK
www.couger.com/gcouger

[rdwoebke]

This thread has been inactive for a bit. Now that the Masters is over, how about some thoughts on winning stratagy for that event? It has been said over and over that those conditions although gnarley were "perfect" for contesting.

How about some folks post some thoughts on how to address a contest with these conditions? I thought John Ericson's write up was pretty insightful:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=575118&highlight=Jalapeno+poppers

Particulary the part where he says:

A lot of the flying in the wind had to do with surfing and pumping as much
energy out of any wave lift you could find. As Ben mentioned, there was
very little thermal turning going on Friday and Saturday. The drill was to
launch and clean up the plane as much as possible (lower rates, rudder only
for me), camber and pull up when you had a little energy, then get out of
there quickly if conditions deteriorated.

In an average contest you can get gaggles where everyone goes because
everyone is there. It's not always where the lift is. Not in this contest.
The gaggle was usually a good place as you could really judge what was going
on with the other planes and you could cover someone if they broke off with
a thermal. Well, not exactly. Guys would make heroic efforts at working
lift downwind and then spend 3 agonizing minutes trying to get back to the
field. If you could pull it off you could get out the shovel, but on Friday
and Saturday I twice saw the maxes take place out on front, not downwind.

Anybody else have anything to add? I feel that flying in low lift conditions in the wind is where I am the worst. Wind with decent thermals I think I am OK. Wind with weak lift, and I think I suck... Well, OK I suck pretty much no matter what, but suck more. :rolleyes:

Ryan

[D Hobby F3J WC2]

Hello

My name is David Hobby. I am the current F3J World champion for 2004 and 2006.

I am happy to help with my thoughts on competition flying if there is a need. My approch is not the final word, but I may have some different opinions to others.

[D Hobby F3J WC2]

Where to start!!

There have been some excellent comments so far.

I will outline my philosophy :rolleyes: :) :)

PREPERATION: I prepare my model very carefully and well ahead of a major comp. I find it relaxes me to know any of my models can be flown at any time during the comp. and will be properly set up.

ATTITUDE: To learn to relax is the most difficult and the most important aspect of competition flying. It is also the most difficult to learn and the approch is different for every person.

TEAM: A good team is very important. For several reasons. Familiar and experienced callers. Team spirit. Good friends.

THERMAL SPOTTING. The correct term is thermal vectoring. Difficult to describe but it is far better to know where the thermals are before you launch. If searching for a thermal I preffer not to fly directly up wind or downwind. Fly a search pattern at 45 deg. to the wind.


That all for now. Any questions.

Cheers

David Hobby

[tonyestep]

David sez: "ATTITUDE: To learn to relax is the most difficult and the most important...

THERMAL SPOTTING. .. it is far better to know where the thermals are before you launch...."

At the World Soaring Masters I had the great good fortune to meet David and to have him time and call for me in the final round. It was my first real competition in six years, and the first time I was really trying to do well in almost thirty years(!) The conditions had been difficult, and finding the right attitude was definitely the hardest part for me.

In the short space of our pre-flight, launch and flight, I got a glimpse of how much David knows about this sport. He told me things about the air that were completely new to me, and that proved completely correct.

Despite a disgraceful launch incident attributable to my still-feeble contest nerves (still hadn't settled down, even on the third day), we scratched around in a nasty sink cycle and bested everybody who launched with us. Our good work was undone when one of the flight group, having suffered winch problems, got a reflight and launched into the lift that followed our cycle, so we didn't get the 1000 points I thought we had earned, but I didn't care.

Anyway, David has a world of knowledge to contribute to this forum, so we should pump him for info. Maybe he could give a brief comment about what clues he look for in the following scenario: It's a clear day, no cumuli in the sky, winds of 10 knots. You're launching from the middle of a big, flat field. You're first in your flight group to launch, no other planes are in the air, and several guys in the previous group went left and downwind to make their times. You think the air to the left is now played out. What do you do?

[Hostage-46]

So perhaps a discussion in more detail on pre-launch thermal hunting?

[D Hobby F3J WC2]

Hi Tony

Good to hear from you. I really enjoyed the limited time I had at the Masters.

As to your question:

It's a clear day, no cumuli in the sky, winds of 10 knots. You're launching from the middle of a big, flat field. You're first in your flight group to launch, no other planes are in the air, and several guys in the previous group went left and downwind to make their times. You think the air to the left is now played out. What do you do?

First check you model and the roles of your team. Have your caller look for any visual signs of a thermal, birds, dust, seeds, long grass moving in a different pattern. The pilot feels for any gusts or drops in the wind indicating the vector to a thermal. It is better to fly to the thermal you have detected rather than one that might be upwind, so flying downwind is not a bad tactic so long as you can return to the landing. If a thermal is contacted, it is best (if you have the eyesight) to fly the furthest down wind and let the other flyers turn upwind before you. They will indicate the lif and sink you will need to fly home in. My favorite tactic.

If there are no signs, I don't fly directly up or down wind. I use a search pattern 45 deg. to the wind, up wind or down. Look for the lifting of wing tips and turn into the lifting wing. This may not be a thermal but the information is just as important. Avoiding sink is just as inportant as finding lift. Continue the search pattern and make sure you caller is looking at the other models.

I will be happy to answer more questions. It is about time I document some of my experiences.

David Hobby

[loic_debisschop]

Hello David,

Thank you for sharing your experience. Do you also measure the frequency of the thermals appearing on the field, and their location, in order to be able to gess the probability of finding a thermal in a given direction ? Is it possible to use this information every day or only in some specific conditions ?
Another question: during a difficult flight, you are working a weak thermal and your caller tells you some pilots found a little stronger thermal on the other side of the field. He thinks yo should join the others: what makes your decision: you give all your confidence to your caller or you take some additionnal time to analyse the situation, leaving your eyes from the plane and watching the others, to make your own decision ? In other terms, do you count on the caller to make some decisions or never ?

Loïc

[rdwoebke]

Here is a question I tried to post before and have gotten some answers on, but still I can't quite wrap my brain around it.

Say you are flying in somewhat windy conditions. Say 10-15 mph winds. It is not one of those nice days where the big puffly clouds are in the sky and you know there are areas of big lift (and big sink). In those kind of days, the lift is pretty easy to identify and you have a lot of stuff to work with to decide what lift to fly and how long to fly it. Lets say for this day it is kind of overcast or perhaps it is even late in the day, say 2 hours before sunset. Nobody in the contest is skying out. How do you determine how to fly in these conditions to make the flight times? Do you just work to maximize the launch height then sort of hang around? How do you avoid getting sucked into "plane bobbles, it feels like a thermal causing this, and I circle and this ends up really wasting a lot of altitude"?

Ryan

[jrerickson]

Ryan,

Those conditions can cause a lot of separation in a flight group! If the thermal activity is really sporadic you want to try to find something that can generate a little wave lift, like a line of trees, a hillside, a border area between wide open and some structures, etc. You try to fly with minimum input, letting the clean plane do it's thing, usually with a little camber.

The hard part is judging when to make that wrap if you feel a thermal. Reading thermals in a 15 mph wind is an art form, and if you make the right decision and hook you will bury the group. If not, as you said, you've lost 100' of altitude with two circles and you are screwed. It's not easy!

The chance of a thermal developing against something like a line of trees is better than just out in the open, in my opinion. I like going crosswind or slightly downwind so the planes upwind become a gauge. You at least have a chance to catch something drifting downwind if you are already there.

As it's been said, if you can't find the thermal then the next best thing is avoiding the sink. I'd never fly in front of a group that's drifting downwind, for example.

John
LSF V #122

[rdwoebke]

John,

Thanks. I appreciate your feedback. BTW, your write up on the Masters conditions (it was windy/crappy there, apparently) was I felt the best from a standpoint of "this is how I maximized my peformance at this event" of all the posts on that contest. Several others also did great write ups too, of course.

These conditions tend to seperate me towards the bottom, but then I am kind of a crappy pilot. :) I'm going to use your insight and some of the thoughts expressed by other pilots and see if that helps out next time I am in those kind of conditions.

I also tend to get completely outlaunched by the competition, and that probaly hurts the most in these kind of windy/non strong thermal conditions.



Ryan