Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 12:December 2014 | Page 56

towards the outside of the turn. Pretty soon you’ll get a feel for your glider’s behavior and reaction to your control inputs. Eventually learn to perform the technique in a variety of thermals at different banks. Note, however, I find that my glider has a “sweet range” bank angle that works best (about 30 to 40 degrees). After time you should find yours. When you are in the groove it feels like you are pushing your glider inward into the thermal. Some have described it as “poking the wing into the core.” Any way you visualize it, it sure feels good once you have mastered the trick and especially after you have used it to save your butt from premature grounding. THE PREMIER THERMAL By the repetitive discussion of maximizing performance in weak conditions, perhaps you can guess what I have been flying in lately. Here I want to focus on what you do when you are squatting on launch on a doodah day waiting for your magic cycle. Maybe the wind is so light that you are sure to need to launch into a thermal in order to get up. What should we do to maximize safety and performance? My first step in such a situation is to try to observe how fat the lift is. Birds, other pilots in the air (or who have attempted to stay up) and possibly the extent of disturbance of ground cover or trees can give you an idea of how far out the lift extends. If it looks narrow, I plan to launch into the strongest cycle I can find and scrape back and forth with figure eights (for a short ridge or peak) or close passes (for a longer hill or ridge). Once above and clear of the terrain, I begin turning in thermals when they present their warm bodies. If the thermals are simply too small or the lift band too narrow, you cannot expect to launch and turn in a thermal right away. In fact, with very weak thermals, 56 HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE sometimes it is only the added upslope breeze or general wind component that makes your flight sustainable. On the other hand, if the lift seems to extend out a bit further, I plan to ride it straight away from the launch point (or towards a turning glider, bird or obvious ground disturbance) in order to gain clearance to begin turning. It is this case that is of most interest, mainly because it requires the most judgment and skill. You have probably heard the old rule when you began to thermal of counting to three (three seconds) in lift before you begin to turn. Well, that amount of time i ́