Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 12:December 2014 | Page 54

Thinking Outside the Blocks Part XII: Thermal Trixz A fter decades of flying I can look back and see some milestone learning experiences, such as my first soaring flight, my first thermal, my first cross-country. I can remember each of these wonderful experiences like it was the day before yesterday. But there have been many other bits of learning that were subtler, yet perhaps more important to my overall development as a pilot. I learned these techniques and tricks by observation, trial and error, copying other pilots or simply asking a thousand questions. The funny thing is, after many years of accumulation, sometimes this human forgets some of the tricks. If you’re human, you probably will, too. Just the other day I was flying with only one other pilot. It was a weak day on a weekday. He was way up and back; I was low and feeling neglected by the lift angel. She must have felt my pain, for soon I hit a mild thermal and began coring. I was thinking how I really needed to max the climb since there were long pauses between thermals; altitude meant survival. I was turning as efficiently as I could in that lonely thermal, then I remembered the trick. I guess I haven’t been flying competition so I haven’t been focusing on best-performance procedures. But as soon as I applied the trick, my climb rate increased and I wrung that thermal out like a pair of worried hands. Of course, there are many tricks 54 HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE by Dennis Pagen to effective flying, but I call this one the trick because it seems to work like no other in needy situations. MAXIMIZING MINIMUM SINK What I call the trick has also been called maximum turns or spinning up. No matter what it’s called, it works. I first became aware of it in the late ‘80s when I saw the well-known ace, Larry Tudor, winding up through gaggles at a Brazilian comp. He did it more than once against pilots with the same glider. I wasn’t the only pilot observing Larry, and some of us discussed the technique, but it took a while to parse it out. Now, most top pilots use the trick and newer pilots have the benefit of reading about it and learning faster. Essentially, the trick involves setting a bank angle in a thermal and pushing out until the inside wing is kissing a stall. If it does stall it will tend to drop down and back. But by levering yourself to the high side of the glider (outside of the turn) you fight the glider tendency and produce the most efficient thermal turn possible while still maintaining control over your bank and circle configuration. When you are in this turning mode, your inside arm is nearly straight, pushing hard to keep your body to the high side. Your outside arm either pulls or pushes as needed to keep the glider rotating smoothly around the circle. Figure 1 illustrates the positioning. Note we have shown about a 30-degree bank. I find that if the bank angle is much less than this, the inside wing stall is so abrupt or severe that it is hard to overcome with high siding and the circling becomes erratic or you drop out of the thermal. We should all be aware that the steeper the bank, the less we have to use roll force to control bank angle, and the more pitch can effectively tighten or widen our circle. Many pilots get fatigued when they thermal for an hour or more because they bank too flatly and have to use a lot more force controlling roll, especially in rowdy thermals. On the other hand, this maximizing technique is also tiring. In general, good pilots only use it when they need a save or a jump of some sort. Also, in competition, pilots use it in the last thermal or two before final glide to try to top out the gaggle. Here’s more: In general, curvedtip gliders are more adaptable to this maximum turn technique than square tippers because the flexible tip wand allows the glider to wash out (twist) a bit more when you push out beyond the normal stall point. But I saw Larry Tudor doing it on a square-tip Wills Wing HP AT. In fact, here’s anot