One of the most important skills to internalize as a glider pilot is intuitively judging glide angles. Beginners often have trouble with this and fly by using calculations or by rote to compensate (X altitude over the barn, Y altitude over the lake, etc.)
Condor is actually quite good at teaching this skill. I came up with the following exercise for a fellow who is having trouble with this skill and figured others who have Condor 2 might also have a little fun with it.
Blairstown Scenery can be found here:
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With more experience, you will get better and better at judging glide angles. When we are making glides, all that matters is whether we are making it or not. If it’s a low performance ship and you’re in good air, if you’re in a high performance ship in sink, or you have a tailwind or a headwind, in the end it all outputs to an achieved glide angle.
The way you judge it is by looking ahead and picking a point in the horizon and you watch its change. If it is rising in the canopy, you are coming up short. If it is falling, then you are making it.
In this way, glider pilots are able to judge their glides without any need for instruments or doing any calculation.
You can use Condor to learn this skill. Take a look at the picture attached below.
Look at the top of the yawstring from the first frame to the second. Notice how the horizon has risen in the second frame… we are coming up short.
As a gliderpilot, you will learn to be very sensitive to these changes. You should be able to look out front and within several seconds be able to judge if the point is rising or falling. Of course in reality it rarely remains static… if you hit some sink you’ll see it rising, lift, it falling. But with even more experience you’ll be able to precisely track the rolling average too.
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You can use Condor to practice this skill.
I have attached the FPL file to use.
To be clear, this is an exercise to teach a skill. It’s just easier to learn how to do it with a mountain in front of you since it is harder to judge a flat glide to a point in the valley. In case it’s not obvious, in real life you should not be doing a dead glide over to the other side of the ridge for a while as this puts you out of gliding distance of Blairstown airport.
(Note: DO NOT use Screen 3 on the glider computer for this exercise.)
– Start with a K-21
– Point at the Upper Reservoir (the turnpoint is in the PDA)
– Make a prediction within three seconds. Is the terrain rising or falling in relation to the yawstring? Am I going to make it?
– Execute the glide. Did you make it?
Next, put in 10 knots of wind from 315. Increase Airborne Start to 3000ft. Repeat.
Next, take a 1-26. Make wind 5 knots from 290. Repeat.
Next, take the Genesis. Airborne start at 2300ft. Wind 15 knots from 340. Repeat instructions.
Practice until you can take any glider in the Hangar in any wind condition and immediately judge if you can make it to the other side of the ridge.
To change things up, move the turnpoint at the upper reservoir to another point along the ridge (more to the North or South). Repeat the game.
Soaring Economist 