Who is CAS? Canadian Advanced Soaring Corporation CAS is a group of dedicated cross-country soaring pilots who provide a pool of knowledge and experience for the guidance, training and coaching of new cross-country pilots and future champions

CAS’ Objectives to further cross country and competitive soaring in Canada, to ensure the future health of the Canadian soaring movement as a whole by introducing new pilots to the world of cross country flying and competition and thus showing there is "life beyond the circuit". to actively support the participation of Canadian pilots at the world level

How does CAS meet these Objectives? CAS helped develop the Bronze badge training syllabus to extend training to a point after licensing to prepare pilots for the silver badge cross-country training initiatives such as: lectures at the club level, cross-country clinics, a cross-country manual (for the clinic) contest support seminars

What are the cross-country clinics? Beginners clinic: takes pilots to the level where they can fly cross-country routinely and have a good chance to succeed in Gold distance attempts Advanced clinics (aka racing school): prepares pilots for competition flying

CAS Contest support Contest kit flight recorders, GPS software, radio, ropes, clocks assistance to the organizers as required seed money to finance contest start-up costs

Events to Attend this Summer 25 March 2nd Annual CAS Winter Soaring Seminar (Toronto) 19-22 May MayFly Fun Contest (Gatineau Gliding Club) 25 June- 6 July Canadian National Soaring Competition (Gatineau Gliding Club) July 18 – 22 Cross-country Clinic (Montreal Soaring Council) 14-18 Aug Cross-country Clinic (SOSA Gliding Club) more events are listed at: www.sac.ca/cas/casevents.html

Introduction to Cross-Country Soaring

Introduction to Cross-Country Soaring A purpose for every flight Thermalling Effective inter-thermal flying Glider Polar curves Final Glides

A Purpose for Every Flight What do you want to accomplish this season 5 hours, 50 km badge leg 300 km What skills do you need to improve to meet your goals for the season thermalling cloud selection What do you want to accomplish this flight 1. What are your goals for the season Have you set any goals 2. Once you have set your goals for the season, you can determine what you need to do to meet them 3. All this should lead to what should I do this flight, TODAY

A Purpose for Every Flight Skills that should be practised proficient handling of the glider in all conditions effective thermalling effective navigation cloud reading using only the best lift final glides off-field landings turnpoint photography

Thermalling Important points finding thermals centering the thermal Lets start with thermalling

Thermalling finding thermals clouds no clouds at what stage of development is the cloud what side of the cloud (wind, sun) no clouds ground features (wind, sun)

Thermalling Finding the thermal while cruising fly towards a likely source, (cloud or ground) feel the thermal, vario indication feel which side the thermal is on turn into the up-going wing Don’t wander aimlessly through the sky, fly towards the lift Finding lift is not LUCK, it takes skill to find it

Centering Techniques First circle Core Ideal circle Imagine a thermal, there is generally an area of weaker lift surrounding a strong core If you are flying along and hit this thermal, what will you feel? (right wing go up) What should you do? (turn into the thermal towards the right) lets say we roll into a 40°bank, this results in our first circle half in and half out of the core Ideally we want the whole circle to be in the core What is moving our circle called? CENTERING How do we move from our first circle to the ideal circle?

Centering Thermals We want to centre quickly, to optimize our climb first technique (basic): Level out in lift fly straight for a couple of seconds roll back in Lets look at this technique

Technique 1 Feel the strongest lift here Straighten out Core Our corrected circle is still going to give us the same rate of climb, because we are still half out of the core

Technique 1 Why does this happen? Disadvantages Vario lag flying straight for too long how long does it take to roll from 40° to 40° Disadvantages it moved the circle, but we are still half out the lift is now north of us as opposed to east this means it is easier to loose your bearing to the lift The roll rate is different for every glider, but it could take as long as 3 - 5 sec

Technique 1 How can we improve on this technique? Good vario with minimal lag anticipate where the increase in lift will occur don’t fly straight for too long, in some cases just rolling out and back in will provide sufficient displacement of your circle

Technique 2 As soon as the lift becomes weak tighten up the turn for half a circle

Technique 2 Core Lift becomes weaker Increase bank angle

Technique 2 This technique results in a smaller displacement of the circle and brings us closer to the core than the first technique

Technique 3 Is a combination of the first two techniques Increase bank when you leave the strong lift (this is technique 2) Reduce bank when you enter the strong lift

Technique 3 Lift becomes stronger decrease bank angle Note that if you do not increase bank again you will fly out of the lift here, so as soon as the lift starts to weaken again, increase your bank to stay in the core Lift becomes stronger decrease bank angle Core Lift becomes weaker Increase bank angle

Technique 3 Advantages: Reducing bank in the strong lift allows you to spend more time in the strong lift moves your circle towards the strong lift Increase bank when you leave the strong lift allows you to spend less time in the weaker lift Disadvantages It requires more pilot effort, properly functioning varios and a good physical perception as to where the thermal core is located Q. When do you stop working at centering a thermal?

Effective Inter-thermal Flying Set a working band for the day below what height are the thermals weak and difficult to work? At what height does the thermal strength drop off? These altitudes may change throughout the day!

Effective Inter-thermal Flying Fly with purpose! Don’t let the thermals push you around As I said earlier, you can not wander aimlessly through the sky. It is you who is controlling the glider Q. What happens if we fly into a thermal, but don’t force the wing back down? A. We let the thermals push us around. This results in flying between the thermals in sink

Effective Inter-thermal Flying When you feel lift always slow down and turn into it Anytime you can climb while flying straight on course is advantageous So by reacting to the thermal trying to push us out, we can spend more time flyin in lift. There is no need to stop and circle in every thermal when we turn into the thermal and it is not stong enough to merit stopping, or if we are already at a good altitude, with respect to our working band, then we just make small deviations into the lift and then continue on course with out circling. Besides pulling up and turning into thermals, how else can we climb while moving straight ahead Cloud streets - at what altitude should we fly under them? It is more efficient to stay 500-1000 feet below cloud base Otherwise if we are at cloud base, we will have to speed up in the lift to stay out of the cloud!!

Ring Settings for Inter-thermal Flying Q. What ring setting should you use? A. The expected average climb in your next thermal Q. When do you leave a thermal? A. When your rate of climb has reduced to exactly what you expect your next average climb rate to be

Glider Polar Curves Best L/D Things to notice: This curve is for still air, there is no wind and no lift the horizontal axis is our speed over the ground the vertical axis is the gliders descent rate 1. Multiple curves refer to different flap settings, a std class glider would not have all these curves 2. There are two -5° curves, for different wing loadings. What happens when you increase your wing loading? The polar curve slides along the L/D line 3. What does this do to a. your best L/D speed b. Your sink rate 4. So you can fly the best L/D at a higher speed, but you sink faster. This means you will get there faster, but also loose more height, so you need stronger thermals to make up for it. Optimization

Glider Polar Curves Minimum Sink Again, the speed for min sink increases, but you loose more height, so in marginal conditions its better to be light.

Effect of Wind on Best L/D Speed 40 km/hr tailwind 40 km/hr headwind -40 -20 20 40 To see what effect wind has, imagine a no wind situation (black) Now add a 40 km/h headwind. The horizontal axis which is our speed over the ground, now becomes shorter. We move the polar closer to the origin, or draw the origin at 40. What is our L/D (worse and we have to fly faster to maintain this lower L/D) Add a 40 km tailwind. Our groundspeed is now 40 km/h faster, so we shift the curve away from the origin. L/D is better and we fly slower. Pretend you are a balloon!

Effect of Lift on Best L/D Speed For more information on the internet go to: http://www.isrv.com/~lhuffman/STF.htm Sink -2 kts -40 -20 20 40 If we are no longer flying through still air, but in rising or sinking air what happens Similar to the wind situation, but now we shift the curve up and down, or conversley the axis towards or away from the curve. We want the curve to now include the effect of the air. So if the air is sinking at 2 kts then the glider is sinking at 2 kts+ its sink rate We can see that in sink, our best L/D speed increases I have indicated this on the -5° curve if we fly in lift, our best L/D speed decrease (shown on both curves, because in lift you should be in climb flap We can also use this curve to calculate expected x-country speed. For example in 2 kts of lift (now we use the upper 2 kts?) where the tangent line crosses the horizontal axis, this speed is our expected x/c speed Lift 2 kts

Final Glides What is a final glide? When do you start a final glide? A final glide means that you no longer need to climb to make it home Final glide theory assumes that rising and sinking air balance out on average during the glide, so you are in effect flying in a still airmass. Thismeans you still have to fly on the way home, slow down in lift and speed up in sink, deviate to avoid sink and find lift. Don’t fly down a sink street and think what’s going on? You start thinking about a fianl glide as early as possible. The longer your final glide, the faster your flight. Even if you are cruising at 60 kts on final glide, this is 120 km/h straight on course! You are not loosing time to climb Your final glide start point depends on the cloud base that day. (see rules of thumb)

Rules of Thumb for Final Glides For an L/D of 30:1 (a conservative estimate?), use 1000 ft of height required for 5 nautical miles of distance to cover this is about 1000 ft per 10 km where does this come from? 30/1 means from 1000 ft you can fly 30,000 ft over the ground 1 nm = 6076 ft, so 30,000  6076 = 4.93 miles = 9.1 km So if you have a 5000 ft cloud base, when should you be on final glide? If ground elevation is 300 ft, and you have a 500 ft safety factor, and you must stay 500 ft below cloudbase. 4700 ft, cloud to ground - 1000 ft safety = 3700 ft so from 3700 feet you should be able to glide about 35 km

Setting up your Final Glide What ring setting do you set for your final glide You are in the last thermal needed to get you home, when do you leave? Which is more conservative for a final glide a 2kt or 5 kt setting? The average rate of climb in the climb you are in This optimizes the how high should I climb and fly home faster question You leave when you reach the height required to fly home at that ring setting