Continuing the write-up about a typical race flight, I was going to describe the Climb and Cruise phases, but after yesterday's epic Final Glide it seems more appropriate to jump to that today.
During the Climb and Cruise phases you continuously gain height in the climb and lose height in the Cruise (Glide). There comes a point where you may think you have enough height to cruise for home. Remember, every time you stop to climb (turn) you are not going forward, so you want to climb as little as possible. At the same time, you can't predict what the air ahead of you is doing, the air is constantly moving up and down and you may lose more height in the final glide than you think. It would be a disaster to be in the lead 10 km from home only to land just short of the home airfield and lose all speed points.
So you must judge the last climb and glide perfectly. Too much height and you lose time, too little height and you lose the day.
Imagine the scene is, your flight computer is saying you need 1000 feet more for the final glide, this will give you zero margin. You arrive at a 400 feet per minute climb, this is not as good as climbs you had before, but you are thinking "it's late in the day, the sky ahead are not looking so great, this will do.". You take the climb.
You climbed 500 feet and the climb rate drops to 250 feet per minute. This is annoying! You want some margin, say 600 feet, so you still need to climb 1100 feet and at 250 per minute, that's 4.5 minutes. "Oooff", you are thinking, "it was going so well, why can't this bl**dy climb sort itself out..!".
You see other gliders that you were chasing leaving the climb just above you. "Do they have enough?" you wonder, "should I go?". Sometimes you go, find better climbs and win the day, sometime you stay, and lose time, sometimes you stay and win the day because the guys ahead couldn't find anything better and had to slow down, the permutations are endless. All these options and eventualities are constantly spinning around in your head. This is a critical phase of the flight and the adrenalin and emotions are running very high. Yet you have to make a rational choice. Very hard to do.
Yesterday I cut it down to the wire. I thought I had plenty of height to get home, but didn't account for the increasing head wind as we were getting lower and lower. The last part of the glide was very low over crop fields and I just managed to get in to the airfield.
The results as it happen were very good, won the day and 1-2-3 for the GB team..
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
Monday, 8 July 2013
Tight game
The half time talk helped and I had a much better day yesterday and am back in the race. Things are hotting up and there are seven pilots still in the running for top spot with 80 points of each other. There are 4 flying days left with 4000 points on the table looks like this race will go to the wire. The last days should be fascinating..
Sunday, 7 July 2013
2nd Half
Today is half way mark and here is a post from my 2009 blog about the second half and parallels with football.
Second Half
This time it's me doing the chasing. Currently in the changing room eating oranges and getting an earful from my coach...:)
Second Half
This time it's me doing the chasing. Currently in the changing room eating oranges and getting an earful from my coach...:)
Update
The lack of updates on my blog is not because nothing is happening down here, rather the opposite. After three days of sitting on the ground with bad weather we had two very long days with very long tasks. We've been flying around 7 hours a day and finishing well after 7 pm.
My results have not been very good and i've dropped down to 7 place. I found the conditions very difficult and got bogged down in couple of place losing a lot of time. But, I am still in the mix and there are still five flying days and 5000 points on the table and everything to play for.
My results have not been very good and i've dropped down to 7 place. I found the conditions very difficult and got bogged down in couple of place losing a lot of time. But, I am still in the mix and there are still five flying days and 5000 points on the table and everything to play for.
Friday, 5 July 2013
Result
Good result today. Won the day with a good margin and now top overall. More tomorrow as need my beauty sleep..
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Flight
So what is it like inside a glider cockpit during a race? I'll try and describe what goes on during a typical racing flight.
You get into your glider about 10 minutes before the launch and get yourself strapped in and comfy. Glider cockpits are very small and mine in particular is a snug fit, you could say put my glider on rather than get into it. The time before the launch can be quite nervy, particularly if you really care about the day's result or if the weather is difficult. You try to relax and go through the plan, look at the task on the map, make sure all the instruments and various flight computers are set and operating correctly. You feel your mind sharpening and focusing, now you just want to get on with it.
During launch the priority is safety, you just want nice and event-less launch. Once above say 1000 feet you start looking for other circling gliders, marking lift. You get dropped at about 2000 feet, raise the undercarriage and now the priority is to find a climb, any climb and get high. If you on the front of the grid you may have 45 minutes to an hour before the start gate is open. You spend that time finding your team mates, trying to relax, getting a feel for the weather, sampling clouds and lift, and most importantly, eyeing up the opposition. The start line is 10 km long so on a cloudy day it can be tricky finding your rivals. If the weather is difficult or blue then the pre-start period is much more stressful. Sometimes you are just trying to stay in the air.
The few minutes just before the start are very critical and you feel the stress levels shoot through the roof. Ideally you want to start just behind a good group or at the very least, with them. Sometimes if you mis-judge the times you find yourself all alone, trying to climb up to start height with everyone gone, very stressful.
OK, so you crossed the line, you're on your way, sigh of relief to finally get going. You put your foot down to cruise speed, try and work the energy lines ahead and look for the first climb. Ideally you want the first run after the start to be as long as possible to get away from anyone starting behind you. At some point after the start you also radio down your start time to your team captain who will relay this to the officials. You have 30 minutes to do that and the team captain will hold on to you start time until the last minute. You don't want other pilots knowing that you made a start.
Let's assume the day is a reasonably good day, with cumulus and cloud base going up to 5000 feet with climbs between 300 to 600 feet per minute. In an ideal world you will stay as high as possible, staying high means you have a lot of options, you are relaxed and you can make good decisions without worrying about possible land-out. However, things are never ideal.
Couple of things to bear in mind about climbs before we continue:
1. Climbs are narrow and difficult low down and get wider as you go up
2. Climbs are strongest in the middle and get weak very quickly as you approach cloud base
3. It takes time, typically 1-2 minute to find the best part of the climb (centre)
So you want to take fewer climbs as possible, centre as quickly as possible, climb the maximum possible height, and leave as soon as the climb rate drops, well below cloudbase.
As you glide, you lose height, normally around 1000 feet for each 10-15 km. So 15 km down track, you are now down to say 3800 feet and you find a 300 feet per minute climb. You know there are 600 feet per minute climbs out there, that's twice the climb rate. Do you stay or do you go???
Let's say you are feeling confident and you decide to push on, you glide another 15 km, you are now down to 2500 feet and you find a 400 feet per minute climb, do you take it or wait for the 600 per minute climb? Possibly, you now have less options ahead because you are lower. Let's assume you decided to climb, you climbed up to 3500 feet and the climb rate dropped to 350 feet per minute, do you stay or do you push on??
Now you see gliders circling ahead, 30 degrees left of track, a single glider climbing dead on track and a really good looking clouds slightly right and downwind of track, which way do you go? Go with the safety of the pack, upwind (good) but close to airspace (bad), do you go with the single glider that looks like she's climbing really well, or do you go on your own to the right, great looking cloud but down wind of track??
This conundrum / dilemma / decision making process is relentless and is the heart of gliding racing. The great guys are very good at this process and also very good at ignoring decisions that went wrong and just getting on with the next decision cycle.
More later.
You get into your glider about 10 minutes before the launch and get yourself strapped in and comfy. Glider cockpits are very small and mine in particular is a snug fit, you could say put my glider on rather than get into it. The time before the launch can be quite nervy, particularly if you really care about the day's result or if the weather is difficult. You try to relax and go through the plan, look at the task on the map, make sure all the instruments and various flight computers are set and operating correctly. You feel your mind sharpening and focusing, now you just want to get on with it.
During launch the priority is safety, you just want nice and event-less launch. Once above say 1000 feet you start looking for other circling gliders, marking lift. You get dropped at about 2000 feet, raise the undercarriage and now the priority is to find a climb, any climb and get high. If you on the front of the grid you may have 45 minutes to an hour before the start gate is open. You spend that time finding your team mates, trying to relax, getting a feel for the weather, sampling clouds and lift, and most importantly, eyeing up the opposition. The start line is 10 km long so on a cloudy day it can be tricky finding your rivals. If the weather is difficult or blue then the pre-start period is much more stressful. Sometimes you are just trying to stay in the air.
The few minutes just before the start are very critical and you feel the stress levels shoot through the roof. Ideally you want to start just behind a good group or at the very least, with them. Sometimes if you mis-judge the times you find yourself all alone, trying to climb up to start height with everyone gone, very stressful.
OK, so you crossed the line, you're on your way, sigh of relief to finally get going. You put your foot down to cruise speed, try and work the energy lines ahead and look for the first climb. Ideally you want the first run after the start to be as long as possible to get away from anyone starting behind you. At some point after the start you also radio down your start time to your team captain who will relay this to the officials. You have 30 minutes to do that and the team captain will hold on to you start time until the last minute. You don't want other pilots knowing that you made a start.
Let's assume the day is a reasonably good day, with cumulus and cloud base going up to 5000 feet with climbs between 300 to 600 feet per minute. In an ideal world you will stay as high as possible, staying high means you have a lot of options, you are relaxed and you can make good decisions without worrying about possible land-out. However, things are never ideal.
Couple of things to bear in mind about climbs before we continue:
1. Climbs are narrow and difficult low down and get wider as you go up
2. Climbs are strongest in the middle and get weak very quickly as you approach cloud base
3. It takes time, typically 1-2 minute to find the best part of the climb (centre)
So you want to take fewer climbs as possible, centre as quickly as possible, climb the maximum possible height, and leave as soon as the climb rate drops, well below cloudbase.
As you glide, you lose height, normally around 1000 feet for each 10-15 km. So 15 km down track, you are now down to say 3800 feet and you find a 300 feet per minute climb. You know there are 600 feet per minute climbs out there, that's twice the climb rate. Do you stay or do you go???
Let's say you are feeling confident and you decide to push on, you glide another 15 km, you are now down to 2500 feet and you find a 400 feet per minute climb, do you take it or wait for the 600 per minute climb? Possibly, you now have less options ahead because you are lower. Let's assume you decided to climb, you climbed up to 3500 feet and the climb rate dropped to 350 feet per minute, do you stay or do you push on??
Now you see gliders circling ahead, 30 degrees left of track, a single glider climbing dead on track and a really good looking clouds slightly right and downwind of track, which way do you go? Go with the safety of the pack, upwind (good) but close to airspace (bad), do you go with the single glider that looks like she's climbing really well, or do you go on your own to the right, great looking cloud but down wind of track??
This conundrum / dilemma / decision making process is relentless and is the heart of gliding racing. The great guys are very good at this process and also very good at ignoring decisions that went wrong and just getting on with the next decision cycle.
More later.
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