Cross-Country Hints and Tips

By Dave Moores

This is not a definitive guide to XC, and there are times when the techniques we describe here will not be the best, but fly this way and you will fly good distances and have fun.

The first step towards cross-country is good ground handling, confidence in yourself and your kit and a good attitude.

Go flying, practice hundreds of takeoff and landings. Fly when the wind is too strong and too light (somewhere safe of course…). Fly when the wind is off the hill, practice scratching and side landings, kiting the wing back up the hill. On good soarable days try and push out as far as you can in front, when it's lifty try and stay below t/o for 15 minutes without using big ears. If it's smooth, fly without the brakes for 10 minutes, take photos, eat a yoghurt in flight.

Play. Relax. Enjoy. All you are trying to develop is control over the glider at all times, stretch your "staying-up" weather window and stay safe. Easy, eh? If you have to wait for the wind to be perfect, 12-14mph and bang on the hill to fly you are limiting the days available for your xc career, and wasting valuable brain energy on stuff that should be basic knowledge.

Practice! Don't get stuck in "ridge suck" with the whingers, get your kit out and play, even if the weather isn't perfect, sunny and soarable. If you can't think of what to do, find a club coach and ask, or set a task (out round that farm and back, getting 100 feet higher than you had just now) and go for it.

You should learn something every time you go out flying. If you don't you are either complacent, not trying or already know it all…


Reasons to not go XC

We can't do anything about some of these, but lets move on to the ones we can.

There are days when sheep can fly xc. Sometimes a thermal will go off that is so big it's difficult to get out of and on a day such as this I once saw several "experienced" pilots stuck on the hill whilst I flew to Swanage (38km) with a puzzled looking low airtime pilot. With his red ribbon flapping in the breeze we cruised under classic clouds, across the Dorset countryside to the coast and ice-cream on the sea front. The difference between him and the "can't do" gang was attitude and preparation, and one brings the other.

Let's go get some attitude…

Prepare

The night before:

What night? Every night! Get into the habit, even if you are working the next day, do the prep as an exercise. One day you'll be out unexpectedly and the "exercise" you have done will become reality.

Weather. Forecasts, all of them. Phone more experienced guys, trawl the web, ask.

Site. Which one? As above, plus where is it. Actual directions, map. Access, parking. Ord surv map at streetmap.co.uk websites, clubsites, phone, ask. Have a plan B.

Airmap. Must-have item. Now you have site, use "strip map" technique to plan routes and check what's downwind. Simplify map to basics, visualise what you'll see. Ask other pilots likely routes, Identify all the symbols on route and adjacent to it. Plan B for winds "off" or light winds.

Batteries in vario. Check and replace. Personally I switch on and if they are anything but full I bin them and replace.

Get your shit together. All your gear in a bag, checked. One bag, not lots. Clothes ready, boots, food, drink. Fill the car with fuel. Put some cash in flying suit.

Organise retrieve. Ask wife/friend/relative. Share car, leave one downwind. Carry money for taxi. Make "glider Pilot" hitching sign. Decide not to worry.

Now think about your state of mind. During our preparations we picked up attitude. Now tomorrow is different to normal. We are not going to the hill to fly, we are going to use it as a runway to begin our cross-country adventure. We are mentally ready to leave the hill in a thermal and push off downwind to our goal, cruising, relaxing, enjoying. We have nothing to worry about in the morning, no jobs to do. We are not going to get to the hill and find we have no gloves, no helmet, no map, We'll just go to our chosen site, set up and fly.

But first, to bed.

Trust

On the day:

Get up early so you can
Check the weather. So if you need to, you can change your plan/go back to your airmap before you
Go to the hill where you will
Get your kit ready and have a fly.

So here you are, on the right hill, had a fly, feeling good and thinking about xc. Now is the time to start to trust the plan, yourself, the day. Don't thrash around the sky burning energy trying to get away in every thermal, you'll be frustrated and knackered in an hour.

Relax, enjoy the flying, watch the sky and the other pilots and get a feel for the day. Stay loose and prepared and when you find yourself climbing steadily, trust the vario, turn in lift and just keep doing it until the hill becomes a distant memory. Keep turning in lift until the beeping stops or it goes foggy, then go somewhere else, preferably downwind. Look for another cloud just like the one you just left and go there. Vario beeps, turn in lift, Repeat. Trust your vario, never leave lift. Stop before the blue bit and land safely.

Sounds simple? Well, it is, and it can be on the right day. But… by being there with the preparation done you will be the pilot who takes advantage of the day, and has the most fun.


Other stuff to think about:

Climbing low - Decide to circle and concentrate on vario, getting up, exclude everything else and stay in the lift. TRUST TRUST TRUST. Forget the hill and begin your adventure.
Climbing high - Relax, keep an ear on the vario and thermal, think about yourself, look downwind in direction of travel, where will you go next? Check map mentally or physically but don't get sucked into 16 figure grid reference accuracy.
Climbing generally - if you lose it, move in the direction you last felt it, if it's not there invest some height in a big circle to look for it again.
Gliding high - Relax. This is time off for you. Let go of the brakes, look around, grin, sing. Use very basic speed-to-fly theory here, fast in sink, slow in lift. Fly the sky. Aim at chosen cloud/source and go there. Any hint of lift do BIG circles to search.
Gliding low - Look at ground sources and identify a couple of landing options. Overfly as many potential sources as you can but leave enough height to land safely. Don't get smashed up trying to glide the extra 200 yards.

Never chase from below - it doesn't work!

3 big secrets I wish I'd been told years ago:

  1. Stay in the air.
  2. Never leave lift.
  3. Fly the sky

Points for the future:

There are a billion other points to cover for good XC flights. Weather, clouds, sources of lift, speed to fly, gps use, thermalling techniques, triggers, airspace and radios, drip theory, hexagon theory, lapse rates, inversion layers. Cloud climbs, frontal lifting, cloud suck, latent heat effect, streeting, dolphin flying, convergence. With all this you might say that we have simplified XC too much, but I strongly disagree. All that other stuff is good, relevant and will help you fly faster and further, but if you just prepare for the day, trust your plan and the vario, turn in lift and forget the hill as soon as you are high enough to turn and not hit it, you will fly cross-country.

To be continued....