@@PureGlide You're doing better than this local! Your commentary from 6:45 onwards pretty much describes my exact thoughts every time I try to go somewhere on a wave day out of SF.
@@PureGlide "Knots up" throws me a bit, old fashioned--have to recalibrate from 1000s of ft/min. Born n raised in Owens Valley, Cali...aware of repeated alt records above us there at the time. Often can see the "Sierra Waves" over the valley in right conditions.
I remember once, when I was in Malta (RAF), seeing one of the Canberra pilots from 38 Squadron walking towards me. We were both leaning sideways at a ridiculous angle to stop from being blown over (and a fully-loaded Hercules on the pad at Luqa was bouncing around like a pea on a drum!). "Not going up today, Bob?", I asked. With a crooked grin he replied: "Some days, Jack, even the BIRDS are walking!" :)) And I thought 'How true that is of life in general!'
The highs and lows of flying a glider. You sounded a bit more frustrated than normal at times. I really enjoyed this video. The sky and views are incredible.
How the sky can fool you! It looked amazingly energetic. I'm guessing the balance of that energy was well above you. And, it still gives me the willies when I see you getting low over that terrain! Thanks for the video, Tim. Terrific, as always!
Another great video, Tim! That was fun. The wave gets very complex when you have so many ridges in close proximity. No wonder it can be hard to sort it out! Glad you made it safely around!
Yeah the other complexity is the upper wave is different to the lower wave, you could see that massive big wave arch cloud above, but lower it was quite different and not well marked. Cheers!
Lovely vid thx.. It would be great if you could mention the odd landmark - Waimak Rakaia, Torlesse Colridge Mt Rolleston over there etc... to orient those of us who have walked and/or flown the area. Thanks.
What's the screeching noise we hear occasionally like at 15:00? Is that wind noise or something else? Thanks for keeping the approach and landing in. As a new glider pilot it's useful to see more examples of how people set up and land!
Yeah that's a noise my glider makes when I'm in the wrong flap setting at a certain speed! i.e. if I'm in negative flaps but going too slowly. I don't know why it makes that noise, but it is actually useful :)
As usual a real joy and delight to watch your video with the right amount of glider-sink-curses teaching all of us the appropriate flight-modesty… you doing an excellent job and promoting our great sport - thanks so much🌼✌️☺️ and regards from Sweden
Yeah for some reason aviation in most of the world is in knots, feet (altitude) and miles. But everything else in NZ is metric because we are sane :) so during contests we measure distance in km and task speed in km/h, but fly in knots and have to use miles on the radio. And I've only ever measured altitude in feet in my life, so that's completely normal to me. It's almost quite metric 'feeling' too, because anywhere over 10,000 feet we need oxygen. And we normally fly below 10,000 feet except for wave flying. So we have a nice 10 divisions of height between that and zero. 3,000 meters isn't as nice!
Interesting that in the area south and west of Coleridge there was unexpected sink. Must have a look around here for the Dragonfly from 1962 Was the worst around Ashburton Lakes and Mt Hutt?Cheers
@@PureGlide Thanks for that and I can now understand why I was able to recognise all those peaks from my 1962 film. We did divert slightly to the north of Tekapo to get through the Divide. The exact area you were flying has many horrible little downdrafts and sinks. Your third place against the locals was great, well done. Pity Gavin Wills did not make it and I hope he is ok. He put Griff Rhys Jones through the mangle but very gently recently for uk tv I am borrowing down the hotspots! Cheers
if you are arriving at a ridge in 40 knots wind and you expect to go up with 5m/s and instead go down with 10m/s because of negative wave interference things can turn ugly within seconds. Had this experience and dont need that again. Intrinsic risc when flying in high wind speed conditions cannot be underestimated. We cannot understand everything thats happening in such wave conditions, at least I can't.
6:30 looks like you're flying under the descending part of the rotor, clouds seem to be dissipating above you. Did you have the option of just pushing on NW with high speed instead of that long left turn?
Good question, maybe it would have worked! The cloud was a bit of a problem, I can't fly in it, because there are hard bits hidden in there. Maybe I just needed to go a bit further under them. I'm really not sure. And I'm not sure those were rotor clouds either, it was more a sheet of cloud. Cheers!
Great video. As the armchair glider pilot I am these days I just cringed a little at the loads of excess speed you had on roundout and touchdown. Better that than the other way around of course, especially in those very windy conditions, and you did get it stopped all right.
Yeah it was deliberate, partly because it was windy wave conditions, and also because I wanted to end up near the hangars for derigging, and the ground was soft. Cheers!
Cheers from USA. Well edited. Super beautiful country, and hearing your strategy as you execute it, and during pucker times, so much fun while having my morning coffee; Waking up watching you wave soaring is way better than stepping barefoot in cat barf (my morning 🙂) And the distance you covered and altitude excursions are simply incredibly, especially considering YOU are the engine, or at least figuring out where the lift (and sink) are.
Tim of course has an engine in the back if he wants to give up on the competition task. But on days like that with 1000+ FPM of sink around, having an engine that gives 200 FPM of climb is functionally the same as not having an engine! (The same goes for Cessnas with a 600 FPM engine)
Hey! I really enjoyed watching you glide, and hunt for those updrafts. I'm getting my CPL at the moment in Tasmania, and I've recently learned about mountain waves and get to see them every week here in the south east when there's a strong westerly. I'd really like to learn to glide, it looks incredibly satisfying.
I'm a paraglider pilot and all this is way too fast for me! Was watching the mountains rise up at that rate, a bit scary. Waves are so interesting, nice to see you made your task regardless of conditions!
Hi that's my iPhone 12 Pro Max - unfortunately it does overheat when in the sun, so not ideal. But on a cloudy day it's fine. The app is our New Zealand glider tracking website gliding.net.nz/tracking Cheers!
Good video, well done. When I flew in NZ lots of ridges seemed to have convergence lines on them indicated by the lower cloud forming at the back of the ridge that you see here. It was always a good indicator of lift, but that wasn’t the case for you. I assume the down part of the wave was killing it off, particularly at lower level. It’s hard to do, but I guess the answer is to get high enough and then always use the upper wave bars to understand where the wave is rather than rely on the ridges. One question I have is why the double yaw string? I’ve seen it once or twice before and don’t understand the logic. Can you help please?
Hi yeah I think the upper wave was dumping onto lots of areas I was trying to fly on :) Re the yaw strings, I answered that here: th-cam.com/video/OR9zJwcGxoQ/w-d-xo.html It also helps the video, so you can see if my strings are straight even though the camera is on an angle. Cheers!
Well, it's critical to know if you're going up or down while gliding, so I want to hear it! It's always nice to know when you're plunging to the ground...
Great video, Tim! I suspect you got very frustrated at some points in this flight. How do you handle soaring when it becomes a frustrating flight and you're nowhere near home? How do you regather your thoughts and push through to keep functioning and bring it back? I know how to do that in an airliner. I am predicting that flight is yet to come for me in a glider and I'm not sure how I'll handle that (I know I will find a way, just looking for your take). Cheers Tim. Hopefully we can fly together soon. P.S. touchdown like a freaking CHAMP 🤣
Thanks! Well, I sometimes think: what is the worst case? I land out at an airstrip and have an adventure to get back home. More likely is I can start my motor over the airstrip (if there's not too much sink on a wave day!)
@@PureGlide I've been using an Anemoi Wind Indicator the last few months. A few times it helped me find an isolated sweet spot of ridge lift in 10 kt wind. Air mass movements interact with terrain and with each other in very complicated ways. I would like to see another Hawk video if you have anything to share.
Yes I'm flying with Hawk full time now, so any future flights are using it. I maybe put older flights up in future videos, like this video, so they won't have it. I'll do a recap video of what it's like after more use at some stage.
Yeah when I got low I wasn't to far away from an airstrip I knew about. So could have got a tow plane to come and collect me. Or get the trailer in. Cheers!
Long distance gliding seems very technical, so i guess you learn all this at your local gliding club if you opt for it above the every day gliding pilots, or am i completely off base?
Hi yeah you start of small and flying locally around your gliding club, over the years many start flying further and start flying from other sites. Eventually you're comfortable going anywhere! Mountains are a whole other ball game though, it took me a few years to get used to flying around them, and you can see in this video I still have no idea what I'm doing sometimes :)
Great flight Tim! Is Skysight highly accurate in wave there like it is out of Minden/Sierras or because of the complexity of your mountains versus our basically singular contiguous range does SS get confused? Any issues with Hawk at higher elevations or it seems to work just as well? Thank you for posting this! - Michael Price (MP)
It's like the difference between a small motorboat (Dinghy) and a sailing yacht. Sure the dinghy will get you across the harbour reliably every time, no matter the currents. But sailing a yacht you do for the sport of it, to get out and use nature to achieve great things, go places, purely under the power of nature. Oh and I do have an engine in the glider too, incase it doesn't work out as planned :)
Maybe someone can help me here. Understanding the Audible Beeping sounds depicts ascent / descent and if the sound is a higher pitch, means you are climbing. But does a solid lower pitch mean you are descending or at level flight ? I guess a part of the question is, how do you know what the "baseline" is, meaning level flight? I hope that makes sense - Thank you,
It's amazing that it's possible but it's just that with 50:1 glide, it doesn't take much of an engine to go the direction you want instead of endless desperation going nowhere :)
Oh yes, you can always restart - usually it doesn't pay off as they make the tasks big enough to fill the day, so you end up running out of time. But in this case the task was only 3 hours as it was the last day, so figured there was time!
The motor goes up at 1.6knots. The wave goes down at 10 knots. So it's not a great use to be frank! At all times I made sure I had landing options, all our waypoints down that way are generally air strips. That point I got dumped big time and 'low', one reason I turned downwind was that I was ensuring I stay in range of an air strip. Cheers!
I was listening to the altitudes you were reporting and it just didn't seem right - way too low for those big mountains. I am now thinking you were flying AGL on the altimeter and not MSL. Feet not meters. Is that common in NZ? Over here (USA) we all soar MSL only. A topic for the next video? Signed, N227BB (OHM)
@@PureGlide Thanks, I'll look at the file. I think what is confusing me was your altimeter (in feet I assume) was showing what, from my point of view, seemed very low indeed as you crossed some very impressive mountain ranges. Also, when you were in the landing pattern at 2700 ft I was thinking "What is the field elevation? Must be 1000's of feet, right? Heck, its right next to the mountains!". Nope, looks like about 1200ft. I am comparing that to here in the US near the Rocky Mountains where the airfields are often 4000-5000 and higher (see Nephi, Utah at 5022ft). Anyway, thanks for the videos!
I know nothing about flying but I'd say there's far more skill involved in gliding. Wondering how often a pilot will have to land where there's no hope of retrieving the glider later?
The real answer to this has been suppressed, but every once in a while the truth sneaks out: The earth is concave. We are living on a bowl earth. Only visible when you get high enough. Proof: mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/earth-weather-balloon-photo-1.png
It will take all the challenge out of it, but probably someday there will be computer software and sensors that will show, on a head up display, in color, where the lift and sink resides out there. Or perhaps on a screen in the cockpit. They managed to come up with windshear prediction equipment in airliners by measuring the relative motion of bugs and dust in the air. Does anyone know more about this?
Maybe one day, I suspect that is still a long way away. And besides, we actually have good indicators at present, the clouds! just a shame that doesn't show all the air... but definitely for thermal flying, the clouds tell us what is happening (if there are any).
@@PureGlide I see that it helps you a lot that you have your previous track recorded. When you find a spot with reliable lift, you can more easily return.
Great flight & video. This is the video where you most often use the words *crap* and *dump* . Understatement: _a forty knot tailwind helps a bit_ Greatings from CH!
Low 300' save after launch moving north across the eastern CA/OR border working lift, eventually at 10,000+ AGL with goal so easy. Instantly I and everyone went to the ground faster than I have ever been part of. Massive non-wave sink (we never figured it out). It was epic. Only the cold beers in the field where we were forced to put down helped!
Would it be possible to fly a glider in my home country Pakistan which some parts are situated in k2 and Gilgit (mountains) below k2 there are moderate sized mountains which are up to 8000 to 15000 feet my dream one day would be to buy a glider and fly in Pakistan sadly Pakistan is a poor country thus no gliders or even general aviation aircraft fly near the Himalayan range
Hi Omar, yes it would be physically possible, but usually the getting permission to do it is the problem! I know people have flown around the Himalayan mountains, for example: www.adventurealternative.com/destinations/nepal/himalayan-glider-flight/ It is extra tricky if the country doesn't have general aviation already.
@@PureGlide That is it exactly. Even the locals back 60;years ago I know got caught out as my pilot did in ZK-BCP. But that was not a glider but an underpowered DH89 with a full load.
Here is an other wacky idea from me for this kind of Situation. Have some smoke rockets on board. To help you find out, wherr the wind is blowing, where you are not.
He mentions there was a contest, but not whst the contest is. To get the highest, farthest, most time? Sorry, it's probably obvious to everyone but me.
5 min to spare. Well done. In my imagination--landing is scariest, no go arounds or power on adjustments....retracting spoilers I suppose in 'emergency'?
Thanks! Yeah it's not too bad, gliders can glide a LONG way. Here's a video I made about going around in a glider and aborted landings th-cam.com/video/mZeFV-vTdKI/w-d-xo.html
@@PureGlide COOL beans, thank you. This should be good! :D My only personal experience was in Napa Valley, Cali, stunt glider as paying tourist. Did few multi loops with sustained 4Gs, gave me respect, can barely imagine 8 or 9Gs even momentarily. Great sport. Weird tangent but--our first family doctor crashed dead at some 9k alt, but he was 80 something and some thought it sort of a suicide. He'd been bragging about buzzing the mountain ridges for yrs and wasn't dealing well with aging. Also angry that his powered GA license taken after a heart attack decades prior. He had good couple decades in glider post decades of powered flying. My take away was the just higher connection with the sport and aviation in general, nothing negative. Anything can be done dangerously.
You literally couldn't see it coming? DUH. All you had to do was look up. Or.. You know. Barometer. Attention hound you. I understand aeronautics. If you stick by this...you do not.
Love you boy. But you need to develop your situational awareness. My advice to you is. Take a sailing course. What just grabbed you is obvious to any sailor.
And then you have people like Keith Essex, Klaus Ohlman and Jim Payne who make it all look so easy. In my experience it's extremely difficult to get anywhere at all on a wave day. I kind of admire how you kept your cool Tim.
I love the way that Nature ensures that a dash of humility is an essential part of mastering a skill. Always something new to learn.
Yeah and I'm new to flying in the area, I suspect the locals didn't have as much trouble!
As long as the dash of humility doesn't come as you get dashed into the rocks then it should be acceptable. 😬
@@PureGlide You're doing better than this local! Your commentary from 6:45 onwards pretty much describes my exact thoughts every time I try to go somewhere on a wave day out of SF.
One of the key reasons I love Gliding is I learn something new at each and every flight (and I am over 1000 flights)
@@PureGlide "Knots up" throws me a bit, old fashioned--have to recalibrate from 1000s of ft/min.
Born n raised in Owens Valley, Cali...aware of repeated alt records above us there at the time. Often can see the "Sierra Waves" over the valley in right conditions.
I remember once, when I was in Malta (RAF), seeing one of the Canberra pilots from 38 Squadron walking towards me. We were both leaning sideways at a ridiculous angle to stop from being blown over (and a fully-loaded Hercules on the pad at Luqa was bouncing around like a pea on a drum!).
"Not going up today, Bob?", I asked.
With a crooked grin he replied:
"Some days, Jack, even the BIRDS are walking!"
:)) And I thought 'How true that is of life in general!'
Wise words!
The highs and lows of flying a glider. You sounded a bit more frustrated than normal at times. I really enjoyed this video. The sky and views are incredible.
I edited out all the calm relaxed bits! haha
Just finished my glider pilot license and I am very happy :^) your videos were a big inspiration for me to start
That's awesome, great to hear!
How the sky can fool you! It looked amazingly energetic. I'm guessing the balance of that energy was well above you. And, it still gives me the willies when I see you getting low over that terrain! Thanks for the video, Tim. Terrific, as always!
Yes! Thank you!
The drone footage over the airfield is fantastic, neat looking down on the cub landing
Thanks! You can thank Alex for that one :) th-cam.com/users/AJHewson1videos
Another great video, Tim! That was fun. The wave gets very complex when you have so many ridges in close proximity. No wonder it can be hard to sort it out! Glad you made it safely around!
Yeah the other complexity is the upper wave is different to the lower wave, you could see that massive big wave arch cloud above, but lower it was quite different and not well marked. Cheers!
@@PureGlide yeah, I noticed, that makes sense.
Lovely vid thx.. It would be great if you could mention the odd landmark - Waimak Rakaia, Torlesse Colridge Mt Rolleston over there etc... to orient those of us who have walked and/or flown the area. Thanks.
Great idea! Unfortunately I didn’t know the names of anything 😂
Wow, well done Tim. I developed a stress related stomach ulcer just sitting on my couch watching this. Epic flight.👍🏼
Haha glad I could help :) Thanks
@@PureGlide z
Watched a few of your videos now Very inspiring as the whole finding thermals problem as the only means to stay up in the sky really appeals to me
you are a braver man than me, Tim. that would freak me out, but awesome watching you do it - keep the vids coming, love them
Thanks, will do!
What's the screeching noise we hear occasionally like at 15:00? Is that wind noise or something else?
Thanks for keeping the approach and landing in. As a new glider pilot it's useful to see more examples of how people set up and land!
Yeah that's a noise my glider makes when I'm in the wrong flap setting at a certain speed! i.e. if I'm in negative flaps but going too slowly. I don't know why it makes that noise, but it is actually useful :)
Gliding is a great sport, thank you for the amazing impressions.
Glad you enjoyed it!
As usual a real joy and delight to watch your video with the right amount of glider-sink-curses teaching all of us the appropriate flight-modesty… you doing an excellent job and promoting our great sport - thanks so much🌼✌️☺️ and regards from Sweden
Many thanks! Yes I'm surprised I didn't swear a lot more :)
This is epic . Onlookers may think this looks normal but this is effing dangerous .
What amazing life you experience through this sport. Thanks for sharing with us.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Just catching up on some of your vids...congrats on the channel growth!
Awesome! Thank you very much :)
Great video. Only thing I couldn`t find in the links was a music/vocals credit?
Sorry about that, not sure what it was, it’s all from Epidemic Sound
Just a thought!! Are there any gliders that have a little engine to get you out of trouble when you're going down?
Sure is, check out my video on the topic: th-cam.com/video/T-KYoFGJp5o/w-d-xo.html
Interesting that you measure climb/decent in knots! Nice place to fly, thanks for sharing!
Yeah for some reason aviation in most of the world is in knots, feet (altitude) and miles. But everything else in NZ is metric because we are sane :) so during contests we measure distance in km and task speed in km/h, but fly in knots and have to use miles on the radio. And I've only ever measured altitude in feet in my life, so that's completely normal to me. It's almost quite metric 'feeling' too, because anywhere over 10,000 feet we need oxygen. And we normally fly below 10,000 feet except for wave flying. So we have a nice 10 divisions of height between that and zero. 3,000 meters isn't as nice!
@@PureGlide And the miles are nautical as well!
Interesting that in the area south and west of Coleridge there was unexpected sink. Must have a look around here for the Dragonfly from 1962 Was the worst around Ashburton Lakes and Mt Hutt?Cheers
No idea! In the description is a link to my flight trace which has a map, you can see exactly where I went. Cheers
@@PureGlide Thanks for that and I can now understand why I was able to recognise all those peaks from my 1962 film. We did divert slightly to the north of Tekapo to get through the Divide. The exact area you were flying has many horrible little downdrafts and sinks. Your third place against the locals was great, well done. Pity Gavin Wills did not make it and I hope he is ok. He put Griff Rhys Jones through the mangle but very gently recently for uk tv
I am borrowing down the hotspots! Cheers
if you are arriving at a ridge in 40 knots wind and you expect to go up with 5m/s and instead go down with 10m/s because of negative wave interference things can turn ugly within seconds. Had this experience and dont need that again. Intrinsic risc when flying in high wind speed conditions cannot be underestimated. We cannot understand everything thats happening in such wave conditions, at least I can't.
Yeah agreed, it can turn to custard very quickly! This wasn't TOO bad really. When in doubt, turn downwind :)
Tricky stuff!, a great vid!
Scenery was stunning as always!
Many thanks!
Fantastic flight! Way to go despite getting dumped.
Thanks! 👍
Excellent day to soar in some wave - looks like an amazing location. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching!
CONGRATULATIONS! VERY WELL DONE! Thank you very much for your excellent video. Regards, George Mosca
Many thanks!
Nice flight. Thanks! Wow, beautiful country side. Where is this.
Hi launched from Springfield, near Christchurch, New Zealand. Find a Map on WeGlide, link is in the description
@@PureGlide no wonder it’s so beautiful. What nice country! And great soaring to boot!
Nice one Tim…had me sitting light in my seat there too!
Excellent! Mission accomplished :)
6:30 looks like you're flying under the descending part of the rotor, clouds seem to be dissipating above you. Did you have the option of just pushing on NW with high speed instead of that long left turn?
Good question, maybe it would have worked! The cloud was a bit of a problem, I can't fly in it, because there are hard bits hidden in there. Maybe I just needed to go a bit further under them. I'm really not sure. And I'm not sure those were rotor clouds either, it was more a sheet of cloud. Cheers!
Great video. As the armchair glider pilot I am these days I just cringed a little at the loads of excess speed you had on roundout and touchdown. Better that than the other way around of course, especially in those very windy conditions, and you did get it stopped all right.
Yeah it was deliberate, partly because it was windy wave conditions, and also because I wanted to end up near the hangars for derigging, and the ground was soft. Cheers!
Big ups and big downs over tiger country, you’re a cool customer Tim. Thanks for another awesome video.
Thanks Colin :)
Great video. Can you please name the artist in the soundtrack throughout? Thanks.
Hi that's this song here, Venetian Blinds by Mattias Tell th-cam.com/video/YYTcIKzUZYc/w-d-xo.html
Cheers from USA. Well edited. Super beautiful country, and hearing your strategy as you execute it, and during pucker times, so much fun while having my morning coffee; Waking up watching you wave soaring is way better than stepping barefoot in cat barf (my morning 🙂) And the distance you covered and altitude excursions are simply incredibly, especially considering YOU are the engine, or at least figuring out where the lift (and sink) are.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching and sorry to hear about your cat barf lol
Tim of course has an engine in the back if he wants to give up on the competition task. But on days like that with 1000+ FPM of sink around, having an engine that gives 200 FPM of climb is functionally the same as not having an engine! (The same goes for Cessnas with a 600 FPM engine)
Hey! I really enjoyed watching you glide, and hunt for those updrafts. I'm getting my CPL at the moment in Tasmania, and I've recently learned about mountain waves and get to see them every week here in the south east when there's a strong westerly. I'd really like to learn to glide, it looks incredibly satisfying.
I'm a paraglider pilot and all this is way too fast for me! Was watching the mountains rise up at that rate, a bit scary. Waves are so interesting, nice to see you made your task regardless of conditions!
Don't worry some of it was time-lapse ;)
Great video! That's a bright phone, what is it and what app is running on it?
Hi that's my iPhone 12 Pro Max - unfortunately it does overheat when in the sun, so not ideal. But on a cloudy day it's fine. The app is our New Zealand glider tracking website gliding.net.nz/tracking Cheers!
Good video, well done.
When I flew in NZ lots of ridges seemed to have convergence lines on them indicated by the lower cloud forming at the back of the ridge that you see here. It was always a good indicator of lift, but that wasn’t the case for you. I assume the down part of the wave was killing it off, particularly at lower level.
It’s hard to do, but I guess the answer is to get high enough and then always use the upper wave bars to understand where the wave is rather than rely on the ridges. One question I have is why the double yaw string? I’ve seen it once or twice before and don’t understand the logic. Can you help please?
Hi yeah I think the upper wave was dumping onto lots of areas I was trying to fly on :)
Re the yaw strings, I answered that here: th-cam.com/video/OR9zJwcGxoQ/w-d-xo.html
It also helps the video, so you can see if my strings are straight even though the camera is on an angle. Cheers!
Looks like fun but I don't know how you can stand all that beeping?
Well, it's critical to know if you're going up or down while gliding, so I want to hear it! It's always nice to know when you're plunging to the ground...
Every bit engaging and edutational (educating entertaining) 16 minutes 👌🏽👍🏼
Glad you enjoyed it! Cheers
Since watching this channel I’ve been looking at clouds a little different. I never knew about reading them to look for air currents before.
Mission accomplished :)
Great video Tim, we’ll done. 😊🇬🇧
Thanks Cool Cat!
Great video, Tim! I suspect you got very frustrated at some points in this flight. How do you handle soaring when it becomes a frustrating flight and you're nowhere near home? How do you regather your thoughts and push through to keep functioning and bring it back? I know how to do that in an airliner. I am predicting that flight is yet to come for me in a glider and I'm not sure how I'll handle that (I know I will find a way, just looking for your take). Cheers Tim. Hopefully we can fly together soon.
P.S. touchdown like a freaking CHAMP 🤣
Thanks! Well, I sometimes think: what is the worst case? I land out at an airstrip and have an adventure to get back home. More likely is I can start my motor over the airstrip (if there's not too much sink on a wave day!)
Merci beaucoup l'Ami
Looks like ALOT of fun!
40 knots of wind fun! haha
What an awesome way to spend your day.
Not bad eh :)
Great video, I miss gliding so much
Thanks for watching Shaun :)
incredible....seems like the purest form of flying...
Thanks Tom, it is! Until I get my engine out that is :)
@@PureGlide I have no problem with that :-) Self launch and some solar panels are the dream...lol well and floats...
What was your Hawk wind indicator saying when the ridge was not working?
Hi I didn't have hawk set up then! So not sure the wind indicator was very accurate. There was definitely a bit of wind.
@@PureGlide I've been using an Anemoi Wind Indicator the last few months. A few times it helped me find an isolated sweet spot of ridge lift in 10 kt wind. Air mass movements interact with terrain and with each other in very complicated ways. I would like to see another Hawk video if you have anything to share.
Yes I'm flying with Hawk full time now, so any future flights are using it. I maybe put older flights up in future videos, like this video, so they won't have it. I'll do a recap video of what it's like after more use at some stage.
Man i would be nervous flying there getting low. how can you land there and get retrieved.
Yeah when I got low I wasn't to far away from an airstrip I knew about. So could have got a tow plane to come and collect me. Or get the trailer in. Cheers!
What is kinda the average tops of the mountains in N.Z.?
Long distance gliding seems very technical, so i guess you learn all this at your local gliding club if you opt for it above the every day gliding pilots, or am i completely off base?
Hi yeah you start of small and flying locally around your gliding club, over the years many start flying further and start flying from other sites. Eventually you're comfortable going anywhere! Mountains are a whole other ball game though, it took me a few years to get used to flying around them, and you can see in this video I still have no idea what I'm doing sometimes :)
Awesome flight!!! 👍😎
Thank you!
Fascinating, thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
The expression Woo Hoo must be a NZ tradition. I worked with a guy in Michigan who used that expression a lot.
Ha yeah I use it way too much while flying…
Great flight Tim! Is Skysight highly accurate in wave there like it is out of Minden/Sierras or because of the complexity of your mountains versus our basically singular contiguous range does SS get confused? Any issues with Hawk at higher elevations or it seems to work just as well? Thank you for posting this! - Michael Price (MP)
Haven’t tried it in the wave yet, only done a few flights in our flatlands up in the North Island :)
My fear of gliding is I’m told you rely on turbulence for lift…and it’s easy to become air sick. Otherwise I think I’d give it a go.
Sort of, yes some glider pilots to have to take nausea reducing drugs to help them fly. You also get used to it. Cheers!
what do you do if you need to take a piss?😁
You're in luck, I made a video about that th-cam.com/video/n4NsWAc3DiU/w-d-xo.html
Wonderful, thank you! 👍👍👍
Thanks for watching :)
I don't understand the whole glider thing. Wouldn't you want a engine so you don't have to be at the whims of air currents?
It's like the difference between a small motorboat (Dinghy) and a sailing yacht. Sure the dinghy will get you across the harbour reliably every time, no matter the currents. But sailing a yacht you do for the sport of it, to get out and use nature to achieve great things, go places, purely under the power of nature. Oh and I do have an engine in the glider too, incase it doesn't work out as planned :)
I find myself glued to your altimeter..
Yeah crazy eh, it was winding up and down like the maniac driving the glider :)
Maybe someone can help me here. Understanding the Audible Beeping sounds depicts ascent / descent and if the sound is a higher pitch, means you are climbing. But does a solid lower pitch mean you are descending or at level flight ? I guess a part of the question is, how do you know what the "baseline" is, meaning level flight? I hope that makes sense - Thank you,
Hi yes solid tone is descending. Some people disable it, but I think knowing you are descending and by how much is critical!
Nice, that was adventurous!
Cheers mate!
It's amazing that it's possible but it's just that with 50:1 glide, it doesn't take much of an engine to go the direction you want instead of endless desperation going nowhere :)
What program is on your phone?
Hi that’s our New Zealand glider tracking system. You never know, an international version might be coming soon nudge nudge wink wink
I didn't realize you could do a mulligan in sailplane tasks!
Oh yes, you can always restart - usually it doesn't pay off as they make the tasks big enough to fill the day, so you end up running out of time. But in this case the task was only 3 hours as it was the last day, so figured there was time!
can't do that without a motor in the back in that terrain... well done!!
The motor goes up at 1.6knots. The wave goes down at 10 knots. So it's not a great use to be frank!
At all times I made sure I had landing options, all our waypoints down that way are generally air strips.
That point I got dumped big time and 'low', one reason I turned downwind was that I was ensuring I stay in range of an air strip.
Cheers!
When the video shows the text "Watch the altimeter wind down!" and you're a paraglider pilot 😭
Haha sorry :) Now I know what it feels like!
I was listening to the altitudes you were reporting and it just didn't seem right - way too low for those big mountains. I am now thinking you were flying AGL on the altimeter and not MSL. Feet not meters. Is that common in NZ? Over here (USA) we all soar MSL only. A topic for the next video? Signed, N227BB (OHM)
Hi, no MSL only, in feet. The WeGlide flight trace is available if you want to see exactly the heights. Cheers!
@@PureGlide Thanks, I'll look at the file. I think what is confusing me was your altimeter (in feet I assume) was showing what, from my point of view, seemed very low indeed as you crossed some very impressive mountain ranges. Also, when you were in the landing pattern at 2700 ft I was thinking "What is the field elevation? Must be 1000's of feet, right? Heck, its right next to the mountains!". Nope, looks like about 1200ft. I am comparing that to here in the US near the Rocky Mountains where the airfields are often 4000-5000 and higher (see Nephi, Utah at 5022ft). Anyway, thanks for the videos!
Yeah field elevation was about 1400 feet from memory! not the high plains like in the US.
I know nothing about flying but I'd say there's far more skill involved in gliding.
Wondering how often a pilot will have to land where there's no hope of retrieving the glider later?
There's a few places in the South Island that are helicopter retrieve only. We avoid landing on them!
Yeah!
Thanks for the ride💨
Any time!
hello :) one questin plasse!!! its the world flat???? or not
Don't answer him Tim, you know what you signed!
The real answer to this has been suppressed, but every once in a while the truth sneaks out: The earth is concave. We are living on a bowl earth. Only visible when you get high enough. Proof:
mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/earth-weather-balloon-photo-1.png
@@PureGlide Nice picture. 👍
It makes perfect sense, if not a bowl then all that water would spill out! 😄
It will take all the challenge out of it, but probably someday there will be computer software and sensors that will show, on a head up display, in color, where the lift and sink resides out there. Or perhaps on a screen in the cockpit. They managed to come up with windshear prediction equipment in airliners by measuring the relative motion of bugs and dust in the air. Does anyone know more about this?
Maybe one day, I suspect that is still a long way away. And besides, we actually have good indicators at present, the clouds! just a shame that doesn't show all the air... but definitely for thermal flying, the clouds tell us what is happening (if there are any).
@@PureGlide I see that it helps you a lot that you have your previous track recorded. When you find a spot with reliable lift, you can more easily return.
There are Lidar that can measure windspeed remotely.
Could someone s please explain what a wave is?
Conveniently I have made a video about it! How Mountain Wave Systems Work, with Lenticular and Rotor Clouds
th-cam.com/video/VhDpoM5k2Qg/w-d-xo.html
Great flight & video. This is the video where you most often use the words *crap* and *dump* . Understatement: _a forty knot tailwind helps a bit_ Greatings from CH!
Exactly right! Haha
Low 300' save after launch moving north across the eastern CA/OR border working lift, eventually at 10,000+ AGL with goal so easy. Instantly I and everyone went to the ground faster than I have ever been part of. Massive non-wave sink (we never figured it out). It was epic. Only the cold beers in the field where we were forced to put down helped!
It would seem that Mother Nature gave her all to make New Zealand
Would it be possible to fly a glider in my home country Pakistan which some parts are situated in k2 and Gilgit (mountains) below k2 there are moderate sized mountains which are up to 8000 to 15000 feet my dream one day would be to buy a glider and fly in Pakistan sadly Pakistan is a poor country thus no gliders or even general aviation aircraft fly near the Himalayan range
Hi Omar, yes it would be physically possible, but usually the getting permission to do it is the problem! I know people have flown around the Himalayan mountains, for example: www.adventurealternative.com/destinations/nepal/himalayan-glider-flight/
It is extra tricky if the country doesn't have general aviation already.
Kept your cool, not sure but i think i would be a bit more panicky.😂
As long as there is somewhere safe to land I’m relaxed!!
You mean you don't want to land out in those mountains?! 😝 Yikes!
What excellent drone shots 😁
Just amazing! World class one might say
Too stressful for me mate 😂
😅
Lord of the sky, great ! 🤩
Thanks!
Perseverance pays
Sure does!
It makes you sink, doesn't it?
Haha it sure did
Butter. Nice!
Cheers!
That beeping variometer is annoying as hell.
That’s gliding for you! We love it :) although normally I turn the volume down a bit while recording…
Wow, that was tricky! All that sink just did not make sense to me.
How about you, does it make any more sense 8 months later?
Not really! I'm hoping some locals can explain it to me after seeing this video :)
@@PureGlide Yes, that’s probably your best bet. 👍
That is one of those places where local knowledge (experience) is invaluable!
@@PureGlide That is it exactly. Even the locals back 60;years ago I know got caught out as my pilot did in ZK-BCP. But that was not a glider but an underpowered DH89 with a full load.
Here is an other wacky idea from me for this kind of Situation. Have some smoke rockets on board. To help you find out, wherr the wind is blowing, where you are not.
Haha that is brilliant :)
Nice save early on 4:06
You keep leaving the sunny areas. Then wonder why you keep dumping. Maybe the same pattern is called insanity?
Ha yes I agree :)
The beeping ruins an otherwise peaceful flight. cant belueve youd use something so irritating.
Oh I love it, it's critical to know if we're going up or down :)
He mentions there was a contest, but not whst the contest is.
To get the highest, farthest, most time?
Sorry, it's probably obvious to everyone but me.
Hi great question. A gliding contest is a race, whoever can get around the set course fastest wins. Each day the task is based on the weather. Cheers!
Nice vid. (weak but I had to say sumptin :D)
5 min to spare. Well done. In my imagination--landing is scariest, no go arounds or power on adjustments....retracting spoilers I suppose in 'emergency'?
Thanks! Yeah it's not too bad, gliders can glide a LONG way. Here's a video I made about going around in a glider and aborted landings th-cam.com/video/mZeFV-vTdKI/w-d-xo.html
@@PureGlide COOL beans, thank you. This should be good! :D
My only personal experience was in Napa Valley, Cali, stunt glider as paying tourist. Did few multi loops with sustained 4Gs, gave me respect, can barely imagine 8 or 9Gs even momentarily.
Great sport. Weird tangent but--our first family doctor crashed dead at some 9k alt, but he was 80 something and some thought it sort of a suicide. He'd been bragging about buzzing the mountain ridges for yrs and wasn't dealing well with aging. Also angry that his powered GA license taken after a heart attack decades prior. He had good couple decades in glider post decades of powered flying.
My take away was the just higher connection with the sport and aviation in general, nothing negative. Anything can be done dangerously.
👍 AWESOME !!! 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺 😁😁😁
The terrible music makes this unwatchable
You literally couldn't see it coming? DUH. All you had to do was look up. Or.. You know. Barometer. Attention hound you. I understand aeronautics. If you stick by this...you do not.
Love you boy. But you need to develop your situational awareness. My advice to you is. Take a sailing course. What just grabbed you is obvious to any sailor.
And then you have people like Keith Essex, Klaus Ohlman and Jim Payne who make it all look so easy. In my experience it's extremely difficult to get anywhere at all on a wave day. I kind of admire how you kept your cool Tim.
Yip, nothing like experience! They've done a lot more mountain wave flying than I have :)