- how to more than half get them before you fly.
(as submitted to our club magazine, "Winglet")
I decided not to write anything particular in this issue about my first, but very hopefully not my last, 500km flight, largely because there is very little exciting to say about it. I have always maintained, and I think my flight and other recent "epic" flights show, that very long flights are possible on a more frequent basis than we sometimes believe. In fact, I would go as far as to say that there is no reason why someone with only a reasonable soaring ability (perhaps a recent 100k Diploma) should not be able to attempt a 500k given good enough soaring conditions and a long enough soaring day to get round the task. Obviously it would require a fairly good pilot to do a 500k in a K6 even on the longest day of the year, but many of us have access to much faster gliders that can get round easily in the time available. It stands to reason that the better the glider the less experienced the pilot needs to be. So why is it that so few 500k flights have been done from Wormingford? I think there are a number of reasons.
Firstly, as we all know, the weather near the coast is often different to the weather inland, and we undoubtedly sometimes suffer from sea breezes, but, unless they penetrate too far inland, a final glide into still sea air at the end of a day is no particular problem if the glide can begin high enough and the headwind is not too strong.
Secondly, we are quite limited in the directions we can sensibly go without getting near the coast elsewhere. For instance, it would be inadvisable to plan a task near the east coast in an easterly wind, and in a northerly or a north-westerly, air from the Wash can kill all convection over a large area of East Anglia. North-westerlies are usually the best for soaring conditions, so often it is best to go upwind and inland. The problem is that you need to be careful to avoid the Stansted airspace, and often there is only a narrow corridor of good convection between the Wash and Stansted, and this may get narrower or even disappear later in the day. You may decide that you would like to use three turning points for your 500k flight for a quadrilateral rather than two TPs for a triangle. This has the advantage that if East Anglia is going to be good, maybe for instance in a south-westerly, you can either go up towards Norwich and across to the west (avoiding the Lakenheath MATZ, which is in a rather inconvenient place), or go west first, and then come back towards Ipswich or Norwich, and you are never more than about 100km away from Wormingford, which is a help with retrieves. Alternatively, if lengthy retrieves don't bother you, you can go up to Leicester and then down to Didcot if the conditions are likely to be better inland.
In any of these scenarios, if you assume an average cross-country speed of only 70kph (which you will note with astonishment is not much more than you need for your 100k Diploma) you need to plan for being in the air for just over seven hours. Of course, you may be lucky and go round in six or less. Clearly, if you can get soaring by 11 am, this means you have to stay airborne until 6 pm - and on a decent day this is no problem. Indeed, there will be weak lift around until 8 pm or later on a really good day.
So, given a long enough day, and a moderate speed, you can get round. I did, with relative ease (in fact it was soarable for at least an hour and a half after I landed), which is why this article is not about how I did it, but about what I did before I flew, as surely the answer to the question "why don't more people do 500k flights?" is "because they were not prepared to take advantage of the opportunity when it arose". In fact a surprising number of cross-country flights either are never undertaken, or terminate abnormally "aux vaches" as the French say, for no other reason than inadequate preparation. The pilot is more than adequately skilled as a soaring pilot, but finds, either before starting or during the cross-country that there is some obstacle to continuing the flight, which is always a pity, and often a source of considerable annoyance and frustration.
Preparation is the key. Without it, however good the day, and however good the pilot, the whole flight will be an uphill struggle. I aim in this article to give you some practical ideas that you can apply to your own pre-flight planning and preparation. Practise them every time you fly cross-country, or even just locally, and they will become second nature, though I most certainly do not rule out the use of a checklist as an aide-memoire. I guarantee that if you do all of these things, and wait for the right day, you will eventually do a Diamond Distance. Equally, I guarantee that if you miss many of these out, you will fail time and time again.
So, what are the considerations when planning a big cross country? (These can also apply to 300k flights and less.)
There are a number of fairly distinct areas which need to be considered when planning a cross-country flight, and the bad news is that they all need to be considered for every such flight. The good news is that there is nothing difficult about any of them, except perhaps maintaining the discipline to get them all sorted out in good time before your launch. Having messed up a number of attempts at significant flights I feel that I have some bitter experience of some of the things that can go wrong, though I have no doubt you can think of more. So, here are the areas of preparation that I look at before I attempt a cross-country or wave flight, and I hope you find them useful ideas:
Firstly, you can use those long winter evenings drawing up some suitable tasks. I have about twenty, and the advantage of planning them yourself is that you can make notes about them, things such as the airspace issues you may face, a list of possible glider-friendly landing sites and their Trigraph codes if it should suddenly all go dead, and their ATC frequencies to use if you have a 720 channel radio, the best (and the worst) wind directions for the task, landmarks on the way, and descriptions of the turning points. If you are lucky enough to have a computer with task planning software, this is somewhat easier. Make all your tasks at least 0.5% more than you need to allow for errors in the software (503km is really a minimum for a 500k). This will ensure that when you see a decent forecast the night before the big day, you will have a nice warm feeling that whatever the day brings you have a task to suit.
You can, and should, also use the winter to put your trailer in good condition, with working lights, good tyres and brakes, and general maintenance.
As you see a good day approaching, keep a close eye on the forecast, but not just from one source. The television and radio forecasts are a bit too general for gliding use, but not entirely useless. Anglia TV's web site weather section (www.angliatv.co.uk/weather) has a useful general forecast for the next few days. Better sources of gliding forecasts are MetFax and Jack Harrison's web site (www.weatherjack.co.uk), but it is also worth looking at the raw data - i.e. the forecast synoptic charts up to 5 days ahead, and also the satellite pictures and charts of atmospheric radio-sonde ascents from upwind (especially on the morning of the flight). There is a useful atmospheric sounding tutorial on Jack's web site. It is very much worth learning a little meteorology to help you decide whether or not the forecasts are reasonable. Another task for those winter evenings. Expect to get it slightly wrong more often than not, but as you practise you will improve. Keep a record of how accurate you were, and why you went wrong.
So, you have a selection of tasks, and you think tomorrow will be the day. You need to do some things tonight. Most importantly, you need to check that all the kit you need for the flight is either in the car, or laid out somewhere ready to go. The last thing you need on the morning of the flight is to forget, or worse still be unable to find, a vital piece of equipment. If you use a camera, load it now, and make sure the glider and camera batteries are fully charged. If you use a datalogger that accepts declarations, choose the most likely task and enter the declaration. Draw the lines on your chart - you can always rub them off again tomorrow and reprogram the logger, but you may not need to and you will have saved some time. If you use a GPS, make sure that all the turning points are still in its memory, and put some charged batteries in it even if it will run off the glider's power supply. I speak from bitter experience, as one day I found my GPS with a memory as clean as fresh snow when I was on the grid. If you have a mechanical barograph, smoke it now if you have somewhere to do it. Make your lunch, and I suggest writing a big note to yourself to remember to retrieve it from the fridge before you drive off (yes, I have forgotten my lunch too). Arrange some drinks or prepare to fill a Camelbak or similar source of hydration - you cannot do a long task without drinking anything, as the dangers of dehydration are real and severe. I prefer to fill mine in the morning with ice cubes and something such as lime drink made with refrigerated water, and include two flat ice packs next to its bladder, and this keeps the drink ice cold all day. Finally, pretend to go out to your car with the aim of driving to the airfield. Have you forgotten anything? If so, get it ready now. Put your mobile phone on charge overnight, and have an early night.
The big day arrives...
Are you fit to fly? There is a fair amount of literature on this, and so I won't repeat it here, but simply remind you that any flight is unsafe if you are not fit to fly. Things to consider:
Temporary illness
Chronic disease
Tiredness
Caffeine
Alcohol (including hangovers)
Prescribed drugs
Non-prescribed drugs (perish the thought)
Cold cures (which contain drugs)
Food
Drink - e.g. full "Camelbak"
Temperature regulation
Bowel and bladder functions
Skin and eye protection from sun
If you are fit to fly, then it should be a simple matter to roll out of bed, guzzle a cup of tea and a bowl of cereal, load the car if not already done, and before you go just have a quick look at the leaves in the trees (if they are visibly moving much before 7:30 am it is likely to be quite a windy day as the thermals bring down the faster moving air from above, probably not a good thing for a really long flight) and then hit the road. Aim to be at the airfield by not later than 8 am - if you are rigging your own glider you may need to make sure you do not get stuck in a queue, particularly if you need access to water ballast. Aim to have the glider ready to take to the air by 9 am. You will probably miss the deadline, but unless anything really dramatic has happened you should not be far behind. Get the glider out to the launch point, and park it off line. Cover yourself in sun protection cream, and put on your hat and sunglasses if needed.
Now, go and have another cup of tea. I am aware that tea and coffee (and fizzy soft drinks such as Coke) contain caffeine and so are diuretics, but I am making the assumption that you have thought through the problems of how to get rid of unwanted bodily water ballast, and that as you have installed a satisfactory solution it does not matter what you drink, nor how much. I would go as far as to suggest that if you do not have a solution to this problem you may as well de-rig and go home. On a very long flight you must expect to use your pee tube or equivalent maybe two or three times, as the dangers of landing out (which you must also expect) in a rough field with a full bladder are well-known and non-trivial (burst bladders leading to peritonitis and subsequent death are not unknown).
Now your glider is almost ready to launch you need a period of quiet inactivity to re-examine the forecasts, look at the NOTAMS and other messages on the Safety Board, and quite possibly change your task declaration in your logger or photographically, and re-draw the lines on your chart. Also, refamiliarise yourself with your list of good places to land out, as it is comforting to always feel you are in reasonable range of a friendly welcome. Also, you will get a chance to cool down and make a final mental check that you have everything in the glider that you will need. Then check in your car for bits you have forgotten.
By this time you will be looking at the sky and other gliders for the first signs of useful lift, which on a good day will start at around 9:30 am. Of course, you have your name at the top of the list, so push on line when you think you can stay up, and plan to stay locally for a half hour or so until you have a good idea of how reliable the lift is. You may decide to go off the top of the launch, especially if your first leg goes down wind, but there is no rush, and you do not want to land out 5km down the road on the best day of the year. Plan to relax, and take your time.
During the flight, have a sip of your drink every thermal. Expect the repercussions of this, which you have of course prepared for, so having to relieve yourself won't bother you. (However, some prior practice at this can be useful to avoid mid-air "explosions" and other nasty surprises...) Keep your mind active all the time, reading your chart as well as the GPS to confirm you are always sure of your precise height and position, and don't enter restricted airspace (without ATC clearance). Keep your eyes out as much as possible as areas you have not flown in before will have different types of aircraft flying in different patterns at different speeds. Maintain an exceptionally good lookout at cloudbase, as this is where gliders will come at you at great speed and in poor visibility from the side. Occasionally talk on the radio (especially if cloud flying) - and listen to the other gliders, which will help you decide how much to push on, or whether to slow down or even give up. If you are high in wave, constantly monitor for closure of the clear slots. If you carry water, be prepared to dump it if conditions weaken or do not develop as hoped. Indeed, be prepared to abandon the whole task if you think it is not on, though it still will be a possibility in more cases than not, unless you have badly overestimated the day.
Relaxation is the key. If you have done your preparation well, you will take to the air with a clear mind and positive attitude, early enough to float around the task high and without racing, so that when you get back you will land still feeling as fresh as when you launched. If I can do it, so can you.
Andy Sanderson