"it’s very important to be patient." I was a tow pilot in the Rockies for a ski season and got a whopping 3.5 hours of glider time. The spinning in circles to gain altitude was enough for me to stick with powered flight (patience indeed!) This is an amazing accomplishment, way to go!
Wow they were flying at 27,000 feet for a lot of that. I was wondering how they'd get over the Rockies but had no idea they'd go all the way up there. Obviously they need oxygen and the plane has to be designed to fly in that thin of air, but just how hard is that?
A few years ago I met a guy at the Smith Creek hot springs out in the middle of the Nevada desert towing a glider. He told me about glider flights from Truckee CA or Minden, NV to Utah and I was amazed then.
Another impressive journey was Truckee CA to Nephi, UT and then back again against the prevailing winds.
I'm curious why he chose Minden as a starting point. I'm assuming it's because it's at the foot of the Sierras and as a result there's a lot of updrafts?
Gordo and Bruce are pioneers in the gliding world. One of their coolest flights that shows their creative flight planning shows up in their 3000km flight in the Sierra Nevada's, and the build up to it.
Some basics: The major challenge in flying gliders is the inherent stochasticity in the weather system. Think of it as a contextual bandit problem with high variance w.r.t local weather (i.e. Even the best planning cannot help if the weather doesn't comply). We have some observability due to forecasting tools (skysight.io) and any policy must have affordances for pilot skill and a margin of safety. A good pilot (or 'policy') starts with multiple plans, quickly modifies to plans to suit the environment, and can seamlessly switch between plans. The primary "reward signals" are duration of flight, distance covered, and (in competitions) hitting certain waypoints.
Previous WR's for longest flight were mostly in the Andes or Alps. You want to be in a mountain range to utilize either the [ridge lift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orographic_lift) of a mountain face or [mountain wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_wave), ideally in a polar region during the summer to maximize the daylight hours so you can fly under VFR for longer.
However, while the Sierra Nevada's have great mountain wave and ridge lift, the number of daylight hours is not ``competitive''. Their main innovation was in acclimatizing themselves with using night vision goggles for long duration in a glider. There's an article on this [here](https://magazine.weglide.org/gliding-at-night-breaking-the-3...) which describes the acclimatizing flights and the 3k km flight in great detail. It doesn't get official recognition because the FAI requires the flight to be done in daylight, but still an extremely cool flight!
Kansas was the end of the line because no more.... 'thermals' to ride higher? If that's the correct term.
What's the difference between doing this in the summer vs the winter? I think I would be freaked out (probably an understatement) in an unpowered vehicle way up in the air if it were dark.
They're flying in mountain wave. Basically, the wind flows over the mountains and you get ripples downstream. You can ride the upward parts of those ripples. They eventually ran out of mountains.
Winter tends to have more favorable conditions for creating these ripples. It needs more than wind, you also need the right temperature profile in the atmosphere.
Darkness is a big problem. Normally you just have to wait for sunrise to fly, and land before sunset. These guys used night vision goggles to avoid that limitation.
Maybe this is a stupid question, but after looking at the (incredible) photos, I couldn't help but think - how the heck did they go to the bathroom? Guessing it was a strictly number 1 24h. Even still...
If any of this looks like fun (it is so very much fun), dropping by your friendly local soaring club on a weekend is a good place to start! The Soaring Society of America has a club map here: https://www.ssa.org/where-to-fly-map-2/
I love gliding but had a near-miss experience and am scared to fly a glider plane ever since. Statistically it's about 40x times more dangerous than driving.
My instructor and I were launched using a powered winch launch. As we were ascending, another glider passed over us and barely missed us. They later claimed they didn't see us, though they were later found to be at fault.
21 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 43.1 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8p95a4JRcw
https://www.weather.gov/source/zhu/ZHU_Training_Page/Miscell...
Another impressive journey was Truckee CA to Nephi, UT and then back again against the prevailing winds.
https://youtu.be/4xb-CKa-FPI
https://www.weglide.org/flight/407896
Some basics: The major challenge in flying gliders is the inherent stochasticity in the weather system. Think of it as a contextual bandit problem with high variance w.r.t local weather (i.e. Even the best planning cannot help if the weather doesn't comply). We have some observability due to forecasting tools (skysight.io) and any policy must have affordances for pilot skill and a margin of safety. A good pilot (or 'policy') starts with multiple plans, quickly modifies to plans to suit the environment, and can seamlessly switch between plans. The primary "reward signals" are duration of flight, distance covered, and (in competitions) hitting certain waypoints.
Previous WR's for longest flight were mostly in the Andes or Alps. You want to be in a mountain range to utilize either the [ridge lift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orographic_lift) of a mountain face or [mountain wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_wave), ideally in a polar region during the summer to maximize the daylight hours so you can fly under VFR for longer.
However, while the Sierra Nevada's have great mountain wave and ridge lift, the number of daylight hours is not ``competitive''. Their main innovation was in acclimatizing themselves with using night vision goggles for long duration in a glider. There's an article on this [here](https://magazine.weglide.org/gliding-at-night-breaking-the-3...) which describes the acclimatizing flights and the 3k km flight in great detail. It doesn't get official recognition because the FAI requires the flight to be done in daylight, but still an extremely cool flight!
What's the difference between doing this in the summer vs the winter? I think I would be freaked out (probably an understatement) in an unpowered vehicle way up in the air if it were dark.
Winter tends to have more favorable conditions for creating these ripples. It needs more than wind, you also need the right temperature profile in the atmosphere.
Darkness is a big problem. Normally you just have to wait for sunrise to fly, and land before sunset. These guys used night vision goggles to avoid that limitation.
https://chessintheair.com/the-risk-of-dying-doing-what-we-lo...