ADVANCED SOARING a Handbook for Future Diamond Pilots
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Copyright © 1974 by John Joss All rights reserved First Edition 1974 Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 74-18760 Printed in the United States of America 11 DEDICATION To all the authors represented in this volume, who have taught me almost all I know about advanced soaring. 111 CONTENTS Illustrations................................... \i Introduction .................................. xv I. BASICS I. Advanced Soaring ...................... 3 An approach that works Ed llYiirs and Bill llolbrook 2 Starting at Chaveiviy. 1959 ............... 15 How is your technical French? George Mojfat 3. Soaring Tips. .......................... 27 Some 'never forget' pointers Richard E. Schreder 4. Thermaling ........................... 33 The art of going up R. Bromley 5. Wave Soaring .......................... 45 The techniques that really work Jack Harmon 6. Into Waves from Thermals ................ 59 A safer route to altitude Alcide Santilli 7. Cross-Country Weather .................. 75 Air-mass type and season favoring long flights Charles V. Lindsay II. SAILPLANE SELLCTION ................... 89 8. Sailplane Preparation .................... 91 It's the details . Paul r Bikle 9. Best of the Standard Class ............... n ] Gentlemen, choose your weapons! Dick Butler 1 0. Kestrel ............................... 125 A pilot's notebook Derek Piggott 11. AS-W 12 ......................... ... 135 Is it for everyone? George D. Worthington 12. AS VV 17. .................. ... 149 Living with a new ship Dick Johnson U Nimbus II. ................... 161 Getting to know you A J Smith VI 14. Competition Face-Off ................... 173 AS-W 17 vs. Nimbus II George Moffat III. SAFETY ................................. 179 15. Them That Has. ........................ 181 And them that's going to Carl Herold 16. Swings and Roundabouts................. 189 Safer crosswind takeoffs and landings Derek Piggott 17. Approach Control ...................... 197 Devices for terminal energy management Ray Stafford Alien 18. H.E.L.P. ............................. 205 High energy landing problems John Williamson 19. Dunderhead's Thunderhead ............... 211 A cu-nim can be a scary teacher George D. Worthington 20. Polars.. .............................. 217 Using them in the cockpit Philip N. f/ess 21. Type Conversions ...................... 225 The "Hight test" aproach H. A. Torode 22. Fiberglass Repair ....................... 233 Some 'do s' and 4don't s' for pilots Fred Jiran vu IV. ADVANCED SOARING ..................... 241 23 The Mountain King ..................... 243 Edward P. Williams 24. Diamond Country ...................... 257 Flying the Nevada distance mine George D. Wnrthingfon 25. The Big One........................... 267 1-26 triple diamond Laszlo ffonath 26. O&Rographic Records .................. 275 Beating 'em -coming and going Bennett Rogers 27. The Way To Go ....................... 287 Bill Holbrook 28. The Ticking Box ....................... 295 Take on a challenging new competitor -yourself Elemer Katinsky 29. Makula at Minden ...................... 303 John Serafin V. THE LIGHTER SIDE ....................... 313 30. Out of the Egg ......................... 315 Starting the hard way John Joss 31. Old Dog-New Tricks ................... 321 Who says you can't teach him? Richard A Walters Vlll 32. Pilots and Crewing ...................... 331 The intelligent woman's guide Gren Seibels APPENDIX.................................. 341 Where to dig deeper ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................... 349 IX ILLUSTRATIONS Practice farm field ............................... 7 Seventeen-mile triangle ............................ 8 Suzanne and George with the Standard Cirrus ......... .24 Diamant over Calistoga ........................... .31 Up ... up ... ....................... ....... .34 Cross section of airflow in vortex shell ............... .37 Initial turn made too late ......................... .41 Initial turn made too soon ........................ .41 A turn in the wrong direction ...................... .41 Wave soaring (4 figures) ...........................51 Evening wave over the Rockies ..................... .56 Into waves from thermals ......................... .61 Wave capture from thermaling ..................... .63 Horizontal section looking north ................... .70 Overhead view looking down ...................... .72 Plot of 153 cross-country flights ................... .76 Typical air mass paths ........................... .78 Heights of vertical convection to thermal strength ...... .80 Diamond distance flight .......................... .81 Diamond distance flights.......................... .83 Long distance flights............................. .84 GMT upper air soundings ......................... .85 GMT upper air soundings ..........................85 XI xii I Illustrations Long distance flights .............................86 Long distance flights by month .....................87 Wing surface waviness charts (10 figures) ......... 101-105 Libelle cockpit .................................106 Standard Cirrus 3-view ........................... 112 Standard class sailplane comparison ................. 113 Standard Libelle 3-view ..........................114 Standard class sailplane comparison corrected to equivalent wing loading ...................... 115 AS-W 15 3-view ................................116 1-35 3-view....................................118 Nuggett 3-view ................................. 120 C-70 3-view .................................. .122 Standard Cirrus cockpit .......................... 123 Standard Cirrus ................................ 124 Kestrel 3-view..................................128 Kestrel cockpit ................................. 129 Kestrel .......................................131 AS-W 12 3-view ................................140 AS-W 17 3-view ................................152 Nimbus II 3-view ............................... 162 Nimbus II cockpit .............................. 164 Nimbus II .....................................166 Skylark/Libelle braking comparison .................207 Fast and slippery ... Help!........................208 Performance chart Schweizer 1-26 ................218 Lift, drag, and glide angle relationship ...............219 Flattest glide angle speed - Schweizer 1-26 ...........220 Flattest glide angle speeds for sink, lift, and headwinds - Schweizer 1-26 .................222 Best speed to fly - Schweizer 1-26 .................223 Altitude loss/mile in sinking air - Schweizer 1-26 ......223 Design pecularities - fictitious sailplane ..............231 Impregnation of rovings ..........................234 Splices right and wrong ........................ .239 Illustrations / jc/ii 24,000 ft. over Wcstcliffe ........................ .246 Lennie over Boulder ............................ .247 The lure . .. and the challenge .................... .249 "A vaporous envelope containing millions of tiny silver needles .......................... .253 Map of Nevada distance mine ..................... .261 1-26 3-view ................................... .268 I missed the big one ............................ .272 Map of South Island ............................ .277 Map of Allegheny Mountains ..................... .281 Barogram - El Mirage to Bear Lake ................ .297 Barogram evaluator ............................ .298 Optimum speed between thermals ................. .300 Flight flow chart .............................. .301 Caproni A-21 Calif 3-view ....................... .304 Makula - 300-km record in the bag ................ .306 Waiting for the weather ......................... .310 Makula (note hand) taking world multiplace goal/ return -anvil cloud is over Mt. Whitney............ .311 Out of the egg ................................ .316 2-33 3-view .................................. .319 Turning point photography ...................... .329 Pilots and crewing ............................ .332 INTRODUCTION Learning to fly sailplanes competently is a lifelong task for me, closely akin to the craft of writing at which I work daily. Most literate people have the basic mechanical ability to use words grammatically and understandably. Few would consider taking up writing professionally or staking their lives on their literary abilities. Yet many of these same men and women put their lives on the line in a sailplane, often after relatively few hours of training and experience, and with limited education in flying skills. I plead guilty to such incompetence and inexperience in the cockpit, yet like many of my fellow pilots I constantly aspire to higher skills and achievements. It has always seemed to me that the basic flying mechanisms are relatively simple to train into the average, motivated