@Airsoftguy1313 20 to 30 kts wind blowing across the ridge, it's called "ridge soaring" and is very effective. When reaching a certain altitude above the ridge or a mountain, you can hope to get in a "wave". That's what happens after 2:10 on the video, and as long as you stay in the upward part of the wave, you'll climb. We stopped around 15,000ft for obvious Oxygen issues and went down again to 12,000ft, but you could easily reach 20,000 or 25,000ft above the Alps.
@Airlinepilot1687 Thermal soaring, then ridge soaring and finally we managed to get in the wave and climb pretty high (15,000 ft). But 7 hours does seem like a lot after a while. Some people regularly fly more than 10 hours, some even managed 50 hrs back in the 70s but they fell asleep and crashed ...
Yeah that's pretty much how it works, we are in contact with military frequencies (mostly, in the Alps) or with Regional Controls and we open different gliding zones (if available) when needed. At lower altitudes, we have air-to-air frequencies for gliders only.
That's absolutely amazing !!! I wasn't sure if I should begin with gliding but this video absolutely convinced me to do it. ! Thank you! :) Greetings from Germany !
2 m/s, about 400 fpm. Speed is in kph. The gliders I flew in the UK had vertical speed in knots (1 knot is roughly 100 fpm) and speed in mph. A few gliders use knots for speed as well. It can become quite confusing.
@karga2tilki Ah well, don't worry, we didn't hold it up for 7 hrs, considering we waited 1 hr in the glider before taking-off (you wait until your turn comes, with a plane to tow you), that's more like 8 - 9 hrs total, while we drank each 1 Liter of water to keep hydrated. There are ways to do it in the air, even for girls ... ;-)
Any chance to fly gliders in the Middle East? I've heard of a few gliders flying in Saudi Arabia, is there anything closer to Dubai? That's the thing I'll miss the most when I make the move ...
@Airlinepilot1687 Well, the higher you fly,, the more dehydrated you get. If you don't want to pass out, you have to drink and eat. And you actually drink quite a lot ... Males are lucky as they can manage to use a bottle or a plastic bag... , females can't. (although it is a very tough work, especially if you're flying alone in bumpy conditions and nobody can't take over the controls). I let you guess what females use ... (and some males as well...). A lot of people fly more than 9 hrs non-stop
how did u get out of the 80km/h headwind since in theory the plane would be in a state of equilibrium or not moving i suppose? turn and remove all throttle power to decend to lower altitudes? increase speed or what not?
Thanks for the reply, It's something I've never tried. Had my ATPL for 10 years now, may look into it when I move back to UK. Free flying after all.....you seen the price of AVGAS recently?
No I've never seen a Glider over here, in fact GA in general is pretty non existent. So Government controlled...... How long until you take the plunge into the Sand pit then?
