This site has been created by Doug Cline to support the Finger Lakes
Cross Country Program. A description of the Finger Lakes Cross Country
Program and related information are given below. It is followed by links to articles on weather, contest flying, and safety, that may be of interest to pilots participating in either cross country or local soaring.
The spectacular wave picture, shown above, was taken by Southern Soaring, Omarama, NZ. The 2009 FLSC Cross-country Championship:
The FLSC Cross country Championship has been created to stimulate cross country flying by club members. Cross-country flying is the pinnacle of soaring; it is exciting and addictive. The Soaring Society of America has established the On-line Contest, OLC, based on the highly successful OLC system used extensively in Europe. The OLC is ideal for scoring and publicizing your cross country flights. The OLC daily results are published each day. The nice feature of the OLC is that if you have an electronic logger you can automatically and immediately score your flight that will count towards the FLSC Cross Country Championship. Otherwise send me your logger file, so that it can be posted on this web site and counted towards the championship. I will use the OLC feature of See You to calculate the longest distance from your logger file. SSA On-Line Contest League 2009:
There is a second advantage of the OLC in that the US OLC League allows the FLSC to compete as a club with other soaring clubs in region 3 for cross country soaring achievements for each weekend. Doug Haluza who appears to have spearheaded this initiative for the SSA has additional suggestions on how to participate on the SSA OLC League. I have registered the Finger Lakes Soaring Club as a competitor that is based at Dansville. Each of you who wishes to compete or use the OLC to analyse and publicize your flights needs to register at http://www2.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/2006/anm_teilnehmer.php?olc=olc-usa&spr=en . When you register select the Finger lakes Soaring Club as your club and Dansville as the site. The OLC is a friendly contest to stimulate cross country flying. Participate since it is a lot of fun.
Soar Fest: 2 - 18 July, 2009
Soar Fest is the ideal environment to partake in cross country flying. The soaring facilities are available every day during Soar Fest. The Dansville area is an especially safe environment for learning cross country flight since there are many airports and large fields to use if you have to land off field. It is highly recommended that you attend Kai Gertsen's excellent seminar entitled "Off-field landings" that will be given in the Club House at 9.00am on 2 May 2009.
Region 3 Contest: 15 - 22 August 2009
The Region 3 SSA contest will be held at Dansville 15 - 22 August 2009. This is an ideal location for getting involved in cross-country flying. The friendly atmosphere and safe flying environment make Region 3 an ideal introduction to competition flying.
Latest News
2 May 2009
Kai will present a seminar entitled "Off-field landings" in the Club House at 9.00am, on Saturday 2 May. It is highly recommended that you attend and learn the secrets from a renowned master of cross country flying.
6 April 2009
This web site was updated to include the Region 3 contest, Kai's seminar, and links to articles on accidents involving turbulence.
5/24/08
Jari Wallach should be congratulated for flying his 304C on a 303 km from Dansville to just south of Towanda and return. He thought there was no hope of getting back home due to the strong headwind and dying thermals. But by persistence and following the clouds he successfully got home. This flight qualifies for a FAI gold distance badge.
4/19/08
FLSC is the proud new owner of a 1986 Centrair Pegasus 101B, serial number 203. It was built at the same time as serial number 202 owned by Doug and Geoff Cline for the past 11 years. Comments on the flight characteristics of the Pegasus 101B are available for those interested.
7/22/07
Doug Bradley flew north from DSV to Geneseo, then south to Cash Creek, which is just north of Towanda, and returned almost to Bath where he had to land on the hill late in the day. The igc trace gives that Doug made an OLC distance of 265.3km. His declared flight was 304.8km. Great flight, better luck next time.
2/9/2007
The Contest Flying page below has been updated by the addition of links to many really interesting articles that may entertain you while waiting for the wind chill to rise above negative Fahrenheit readings.
Finger Lakes Cross Country Soaring Program
The FLSC Cross-country Program is designed to promote,
encourage, and teach cross-country soaring.. As an inducement a FLSC
Cross Country Award will be given to the FLSC pilot having the seasons
highest sum total of handicapped cross country miles for flights originating
and Dansville Airport. A description of the goals and rules of this cross-country
program are given in Rules
of the FLSC Cross Country Program . Where possible the OLC criteria will be used to evaluate flights. The handicaps assigned to sailplanes
is given in Sailplane handicaps . Pilots
completing cross-country flights to accrue towards this program must
submit a Cross-country
Task Report Sheet for each flight. A log of flights claimed will
be available at 2009 Flight Log.
The excellent article "Introduction
to Cross Country Soaring" by Kai Gertsen, is required reading for anyone wishing to participate
in the Cross Country Soaring program. An outline of some important
aspects of cross country flight is given in the FLSC Safety Seminar
March 2004 Power Point presentation on Safety
and Cross-country flight.
The Sailplane Racing Association web site has links to excellent sites and articles that pertaining to sailplane racing. Aerial Recognition Quiz Mark Black is organizing an aerial picture-of-the-week quiz to see if you can recognize the location in the picture. The purpose is to promote and prepare us all for the forthcoming soaring season. Remember, recognizing some of these locations could be important even when flying locally as well as flying cross country. March 2, 2005; Quiz #1
March 9, 2005; Quiz #2
March 22, 2005; Quiz #3
April 10, 2005: Quiz #4
May 4, 2005: Quiz #5 Weather forecasts Weather forecast sources:
Excellent weather forecast information for aviation
is available on the web in addition to calling your local Flight
Service Station. The web provides access to some outstanding graphical presentations
of weather information needed for soaring. Soundings
can be generated from either MAPS or RUCS data at the FSL
Soundings site. Enter DSV in place of DEN to get a local sounding
for Dansville. The Java tool is useful for understanding the plot.
Jack Glendenning's wonderful BLIPMAPS provide
the best graphical presentation of the weather forecasts for soaring.
There are two types of Blipmap. The Rapid Update Cycle RUCS model has
a 20 km horizontal resolution and forecasts out to 24 hours, updated
at 3 hr increments plus hourly forecasts out to 3 hours. The newer NAM
model has a 12 km horizontal resolution and smaller grid size which improves
cloud predictions. The NAM model is intended to provide longer-term forecasts
out to 84 hours, but it assimilates new observation data and provides
updated forecasts only every 6 hrs giving forecasts in 3 hour increments.
Harris Hill has just implemented an
outstanding soaring
weather web page that summarizes the latest soaring weather
for our area
using the latest Blipmaps, soundings, etc. The
Blipmap forecast also can be projected onto See You maps using secondary
programs such as BMapper or Blast.
Remember to maintain
a fair degree of skepticism regarding the reliability of weather
forecast; the highest resolution, most
reliable,
short-term
forecast
is obtained
by looking outside of the cockpit. Interpretation of weather forecasts:
Two excellent seminars on interpretation of weather
forecasts for soaring were
presented at the 2004 PGA Cross Country Seminar. They
are Thermal
Soaring Forecasting by Richard Kellerman and "Cross
Country Lift Sources" by Ken Kochanski. Lightning:
Two interesting articles on the impact of lightning
on flying are:
1) Accident
report of lightning strike on ASK-21 in England 1999. This is an
excellent but sobering report.
2) Uman & Rakov
2003 paper analyses the impact of lightning on aircraft
3) An interesting video clip of lightning striking an aircraft in Japan
Contest flying
Below are links to some interesting articles about contest flying. Remember that most of the key principles of contest flying are equally applicable to cross country flying. John Cochrane has an excellent compilation of contest related articles published in Soaring by himself and Karl Striedeck at http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/#corner.
Contest Weather:
Getting to the Core of Clouds John Coutts
Unhelpful Clouds Tom Bradbury
Guide to Clouds Tom Bradbury
Cumulus Spreadout Tom Bradbury
Competition:
Competition Philosophy Dick Johnson
Do's and Dont's of Contest flying Dick Schreder
Exploiting Opposing Airmasses Gavin Wills
Getting Started in Competition George Moffat's excellent article taken from Feb 2000 edition of Soaring.
Low :Loss Flying George Moffat
Practicing for competitions George Moffat
SRA Competition Guide (PDF) - John Good's comprehensive guide for the aspiring first-time Regional Soaring Pilot.
"Just
a little faster" article by John Cochrane 2000
"A
little faster" talk by John Cochrane 2000
Just a little Faster Please Jan 2007. Condensed rewritten article for Germany . This version is better, except the numbers are all m/s and km
"Contest
Safety" talk by John Cochrane SSA 2002
"New
Mc Cready Theory" by John Cochrane 1999
"The
Start Game" John Cochrane, 1998
" Climb performance and handicapping" Judah Milgram
Contest Turnpoint
Repository
FAA Regulations:
FAA Exemption Letter #4988G This is the FAA exemption letter permitting lack of identification data plate on gliders.
FAA Letter of Agreement regarding KELM Airspace. This FAA letter of agreement specifies glider operating procedures for entering KELM Class D airspace when flying at Harris Hill
Safety
Pilot Operating Handbooks for FLSC gliders:
This section will provide access to scanned copies of the Pilot Operating Handbooks for FLSC gliders including the most recent weight and balance information.
Pegasus 101 N58KG: 1) POH, 2) Weight and Balance
ASK21 N574KS: 1) POH, 2) Weight and Balance
Winch launch:
The potential implementation of winch launching at Dansville provides the FLSC with an exciting and inexpensive new mode of launch. However, to quote Sailplane and Gliding [Dec/Jan 2005/06] "The winch launch gives rise to more accidents in which pilots are killed or injured than any other type of UK gliding accident." Clearly education and thorough training are crucial before participating in this mode of launch. Prior to taking a winch launch I recommend that you study at least one of the the following two excellent publications:
1) The British Gliding Association webpage http://www.gliding.co.uk/bgainfo/safety/safewinchlaunching.htm includes a excellent booklet, video clips, and a question plus answer test on safe winch launching. The Safe Winch Launch booklet also can be downloaded as a pdf file.
2) A
paper written by Dean Carswell entitled "Ground Launching" that he presented at the 2006 SSA Convention.
3) A paperback book by Derek Piggott entitled "Ground Launches" that is available from the British Gliding Association at a cost of 10.50 British pounds
4) The British Gliding Association is concerned about the accident rate during winch launch. therefore during the past few months they have published three articles in Sailplane and Gliding. These are "Safe winch launching" in S&G vol 56 #6, "Time for lateral thinking" S&G Vol57 #1, and "Six eventful seconds" S&G Vol57, #2
5) An interesting example of winch launching can be seen in a couple of videos from YouTube that show a Fox glider set the winch launch altitude record then the pilot does aerobatics on the way down. For the view of the flight from the MDM Fox aerobatic glider see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VlRd9-wxQI (Search YouTube for"Hohenflug" if the link doesn't work.). A view of the modified Tost winch is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFKsjDIjmDg (Search YouTube for "Schleppwinde". The winch launched glider reaches almost 1400m, that is. 4500ft. The aerobatics on the descent include snap rolls, outside loops and the g-meter reads +/- 6G afterwards.
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