Hey fellow soarers! I've been going through my commercial add-on for gliders as an already rated commercial power pilot, and something I noticed is that I was not able to find tools online for things that I would've expected. For example, looking for an online source that paints glide range rings around an airport. Since I'm a former software developer, I decided to just create it for myself, and when I showed the local CFI-Gs, they all wanted it as well. So it's now on a free website with other tools that have been inspired by local instructors. There is of course room for improvement, but I believe that it's useful enough at this stage that it should be shared. Hope it helps!

soaringsandbox.com

(Better on desktop than mobile for now)

Current Teaching Tools:

• Glider Range Rings
  • Multiple airport glide areas
  • Wind-adjusted range
  • Terrain clearance
  • Arrival altitude margins
• Glider Polar Explorer
  • Interactive glider polar (headwind and sink move polar origin live)
  • Minimum sink and best glide ratio/speed depicted
  • Theoretical Ballast, bank, and flap settings
• Thermal Simulator
  • Interactive depiction of a thermal
  • Turn radius from speed and bank angle
  • Naive Centering Strategies
    • some highly dependent on variometer delay
• Speed-To-Fly Race
  • Six speed-to-fly strategies for demonstration
    • configurable Lift and sink course
  • Auto/Manual MacCready settings
  • Time and finish-altitude results
• Glider Instrument Inspector
  • Pitot-static system
  • Variometer compensation of total energy and netto systems
  • Pressure plumbing
  • Blocked tube failure modes

If there is some other feature you think would be nice to add, or some feedback on my current implementations, please let me know.

(Sorry the range rings tool doesn't have good support outside of the US... working on it!)

I got a bit ahead of myself in a recent flight and entered class A airspace for 2 minutes. I do not recall any warnings from XC Soar which I was using for nav. Ok it's 100% my fault, but I've reread the manual and I'm not clear what is the warning that XC soar gives when approaching airspace. The manual says a "beep". Does this only beep once? Or does it keep beeping until acknowledged. I guess the Ack window opened up but I was not looking at xcsoar so never acknowledged it. So is it one beep and that's it? The manual says it's the same for when you actually enter airspace, one beep...is there a way to test this beep on the ground to check it's loud and recognisable enough? Thanks.

Feeling pretty stupid right now. I used automotive windshield washer fluid to clean my glider's canopy (both inside and out) before realizing that was a bad idea.

Some context that I'm hoping works in my favor:

- Contact time was very short, maybe 20 seconds total

- I sprayed only a few spots, spread it thin with a cloth, and dried it immediately

- I did a spot test on a small area first and it stayed clear

- No ammonia smell to the product

- Canopy still looks glossy and transparent, inside and out, no haze or cloudiness so far

The canopy is fairly old, which is what worries me. I know crazing can sometimes show up days later rather than instantly.

Questions:

1. How worried should I be given the short contact time and immediate drying?

2. When I check it in the coming days, what exactly should I look for and how? (crazing vs. hazing)

3. Any way to tell if my canopy is acrylic or polycarbonate without the aircraft's paperwork?

I can't get to the airfield for about two weeks, so I'm stuck waiting. Any reassurance or reality checks appreciated. Thanks!

Yesterday, I went up in the club 2-33 by myself for the first time! I'm a transitioning power pilot, though my very first memory of GA flight was in a 2-33, around the age of 6, and I absolutely loved it. So happy to be doing it again! And I'm looking forward to moving to the 1-26 the next time I make it out to the club!

On this flight, I found myself searching for a thermal that I just couldn't catch a bit farther from the field than I intended, and so actually got to the IP a bit low, at about 850 feet rather than 1000. I kept the pattern a bit tighter, turned a short base, and didn't use brakes until final, and touched down just fine, but I was definitely a little nervous leading up to that point!

What features of the sea breeze affect thermal development over land? I have noticed that as the sea breeze arrives, the thermals become weaker.
Is it the lapse rate, moisture, wind, or something else?

I'm looking for an online flight handbook for the Grob G102 Standard Astir II. Can anyone help me find one?

I could only find the handbook for the Standard Astir III, and I'm wondering what the main differences are between the two.

I'm going to fly the Astir II soon and want to prepare beforehand. It will be my second glider after the SZD-50-3 Puchacz. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hello everyone.

My background:

I have had 30 solo with ASK 13 so far. 95% of my landings are smooth. I can manage likely baloonings gently. I have got positive feedback regarding my curcuite planing from my instructors. If the condition is windy, I have some issues with keeping my flight performant, and keeping the red string in the middle becomes challenging. Unfortunately, I get quickly overhelmed by terbulent weather and try to keep the flight short. I always tend to start my downwind 50 meters above the minimum. Maybe it's a bad habit, but it gives me enough room for a more precise final. I should say that a couple of times, I was high through the final. However, in our club, diving to reduce altitude is acceptable. I have never done a forward slip alone. This is becoming a concern for me as well. Because this is an important technique to lose altitude fast. I always get positive feedback for my winch launch.

Recently, I have been offered to have my first flight with K8 by two instructors. I rejected to fly because I am not sure if I am ready or not. Senior students told me they were surprised flying with K8, as it is very sensitive to pilot inputs. Also, the launch failure mostly happens with K8. I have practised surprised launch failure more than 10 times. I also managed a real one, but I was not alone.

I spent some time in the K8 cockpit. I felt I didn't have a clear view.

Any advice, should I fly or take my time?

Hi all

I recently have been learning to fly a glider in hopes of getting my private pilot glider. I am still a beginner with only around 7 hours of flight time, I have done 6 lessons already. I have been practicing my takeoffs and landing since the third lesson and right now I am quite comfortable with landing but the aerotow is what really gets me.

Every time I do an aerotow it feels very awkward and I find it super difficult to keep the nose of the glider on point with the tail of the tug. I am always drifting left, right, or I’m either too high or low. Also I find the first 200-300 feet the most challenging in the tow when we are just starting the ground roll and taking off. I can’t seem to keep the glider stable and always end up high, along with the fact that everything is so overwhelming knowing you have the possibility of slamming the tug into the ground.

I train in the Schweizer 2-32 glider and know I have to get the skid off in the beginning of the roll and keep wings level but at what point can I stop applying back pressure so I don’t get too high before the tug has enough speed to take off? And once the tug plane takes off how can I keep myself centered and climb with the tug plane? Overall, I feel like every time I do the aerotow it just doesn’t feel right. Next lesson, my instructor said we are going to box the wake to get me more comfortable with aerotowing, anyone have tips on that as well?

The problem I have with the landing now is judging the angle when coming in for final, I tend to find myself always keeping the nose too high, and my instructor ends up pushing the stick down for me. I know I have to follow a certain glide path when coming in for final so does anyone know what I can do to get that nose down? Sometimes I cant even tell and my instructor is the one telling me to push on the stick. Also, every landing when I turn from downwind to base to final I end up flying an oval pattern and not flying the traditional box, it makes me come to inside of the runway and I have to correct myself on final. I just don’t know and can’t figure out at what point to stop turning because I feel like I will be way too outside of the runway if I try to level off earlier.

I know I am still a beginner so I have yet to get used to and comfortable and it definitely takes time. Overall, I find the landing to be more manageable and for the most part I’m the one doing the landing and the only point my instructor intervenes is when I need to keep the nose down. So, for the most part if anyone has any tips from their experiences it would help tremendously for my training.

Thanks for taking the time to read!

A couple of months ago I posted here about Cloudracing (cloudracing.de), my live tracking and scoring app for glider competitions. That post got zero comments, which I probably earned, it read like a feature list. So this time something more concrete: over the summer I built a simulator into the app, and since many of us are about to put our gliders away for the season, this crowd seems like the right one to poke holes in it.

The sim in short:

You fly in the browser or in the iOS/Android app, keyboard or gamepad, on desktop, laptop or tablet. Phones are deliberately excluded: the panel, the instruments and the touch controls need at least a tablet-size screen, and I'd rather not offer a cramped version. The weather is real: clouds from current satellite imagery, rain from radar, wind with altitude, and thermals seeded from terrain and the actual conditions, with cumulus forming over them. You can start from the nearest airfield with a retractable engine, or spawn mid-air right next to the live-tracked gliders of a real competition and fly along with them. Tasks are scored with the same engine the site uses for real competitions, racing and AAT, with a nav computer that shows remaining distance and arrival height. Water ballast is in there too.

There are also training exercises with star ratings: thermal centering, start gate tactics, speed to fly, wind drift, final glide, landing. The thermal centering ones are free, the rest is Pro. And a small daily final glide puzzle, altitude and distance given, estimate your arrival height, then see the solution. That one is free for everyone.

The winter league on top of all this starts September 28, free, 18 weeks:

Every Monday a new task opens, flyable until Sunday night, 60 to 90 minutes of real time at real soaring sites. Week 1 runs along the Teutoburger Wald ridge, later weeks visit the Rhoen, the Apennines, the Durance valley and, over New Year, Bitterwasser in Namibia. The weather is frozen from one snapshot per week, so everyone flies the same sky. Unlimited attempts, best run counts, and with Pro you can race the ghost of a league flight with a live delta in the cockpit. The physics is deterministic, I verified that the same inputs produce bit-identical trajectories on a Mac and an iPad, so the times are actually comparable.

To spell out the free/paid line: the weekly league task is free, you just need an account, and it doesn't run on any clock. The daily puzzle and the thermal centering training are free too, and free flying anywhere else gets a 30 minute trial per day. Pro removes that clock and unlocks the other trainings and the ghost racing. The subscription is what pays for the servers and the map hosting.

If you fly the simulator and something feels wrong about the thermals, the polar, the scoring or something else entirely, please tell me here 😊

Last year in Namibia, I was told not to use water to clean our glider (water there was extremely hard groundwater that would leave stains). People used some sort of (german branded) cleaning product, I dont recall what it was. Is there something generally recommended to clean a PU coated glider when water is not advisable?

Second picture is the original without translation

Just wanted to share this message I got from a random person I do not know. They'd like a signed photo to be sent to their address?

I guess I'm a famous glider pilot now :D

I had a glider taster lesson last week. It was for my dad as a birthday present but I did it too. Since then being up in the clouds is all I can think of (32 years old) Im on the ledge about starting lessons - convince me why I should/ shouldn't learn to fly

A little too fast on final.. but a towing plane and glider were getting ready so wanted to go long

Just wanted to share my excitement. 35 yo Austrian guy here. And finally I started my glider training after thinking about it for so many years. 3 flights in, and I think I’m hooked.

But I can also see there’s a lot of work ahead - particularly getting the control inputs right to make the aircraft do what I want seemed a bit tricky at first, but I think I will get the hang of it.

Completed my first ever solo at DLGC Camphill
Plane is a puchatz
Did it on a 5 day intensive course after around 95 total flights from around the uk

My clubs new overpowered 4 blade euro fox

Hi Guys just had a great XC flight today added cool photo.

If anyone studies for the written exam and searching for a study buddy shot me a messege✈️✈️