Wave soaring

[KipperUK]

Wave soaring is witchcraft frankly! you can get into something that looks right, and it won’t work. Then you can be flying along in blue conditions and suddenly find it.

Works best when you aerotow straight into it and it behaves itself and presents a nicely formed crisp line of cloud ...

[Paul_UK]

Wave soaring is witchcraft frankly! you can get into something that looks right, and it won’t work. Then you can be flying along in blue conditions and suddenly find it.

Works best when you aerotow straight into it and it behaves itself and presents a nicely formed crisp line of cloud ...

We had the latter at one point in the week. Everything suddenly went silky smooth air-wise and we gently climbed hovering just above stall point speed. We didn't go high that day as that particular wave was quite weak.

One thing I found interesting when climbing in the strong wave is we didn't ever turn. From what i can figure we set the glider so it's heading wasn't directly into the wind and then we used speed to determine which way we flew. Literally raising or lowering the nose until we were flying on the desired track. I've no idea how you'd do that without a modern GPS however.

[CondorSi]

Hi Paul,

you should give Denbigh (Lleweni Parc) a go...

Wave from the ridge, or delivery by aerotow. Not guaranteed of course!

[Andy1248]

Some (many) years ago I was flying at Llaweni Parc with a K6e launched onto the ridge and flew down the ridge to Ruthin. I turned into wind and away from the ridge to overhead Ruthin where I found some weak wave. I then flew on track all the way back to Denbigh at the same hieght.

[AdrianBennett]

I’ve only got limited experience of RL wave flying, but the first time I experienced it, in a 2 seater (Puchaz) with an instructor, it took me by surprise. We came off the aerotow and flew towards the cloud. As I turned to fly parallel with the cloud, I couldn’t see the horizon due the wall of cloud in front of me, so I had to concentrate to keep the correct glider attitude. It was only when I got the wings level and settled that I looked in the cockpit at the instruments and saw we were climbing at 8kts! Wave lift is totally smooth, unlike thermal or ridge lift, it’s spooky! We sat there quietly, seemingly suspended in mid-air, while the cloud slid downwards past the wing-tip.
Jumping the gap into the upwind bar was exciting, through the rotor (Condor doesn’t seem to model this much) and massive sink to get there.
If you want an understanding of how to do it, look for G Dale lecture on wave flying on YouTube. Great fun, and very satisfying, to take what you’ve learnt from a RL expert and apply it to your Condor flying!