How to fly fast and win online races

[witor]

After seeing and hearing many questions about how to be faster in races I decided to start this thread hoping that people will share their insights helping both beginners and seasoned Condor racers.

I will try to start with a few hopefully helpful bits…

1) Condor is a simple game. During the race you should be doing only two things: RAPIDLY CLIMBING or FLYING TOWARDS THE FINISH LINE. That’s it! if you are doing something else it means that something went wrong… Of course, the climb rate that can be called rapid depends on the task and the weather settings. Sometimes 2m/s can be called ‘rapid’ on other days 4m/s is not worth taking.

2) In the flat land the average climb rate is everything. Cruising at correct MC speed is important, but not nearly as important as your climb rate. So, do not stop in a weak lift or if you don't need to, do not stop if you are close to the cloud base. Do not turn just to check if the thermal is good. If the lift is strong and long-lasting – turn, if not just carry on. Detours are very costly, avoid flying more than 30 degrees from the track. Acceptable thermal strength depends on altitude. The lower you get the less picky you should be about your thermals. Slow down in lift but avoid extreme manoeuvres. Rapidly going from 240km/h to 120 to then accelerating back to 240 is not efficient.

3) Route choice through the mountains is very important. Pay attention to how steep and high the mountains are. Can you choose a route to fly along a long ridge? Learn how to use an external PDA and use it, so you don’t get stuck at mountain passes. The shortest path is not always the fastest!

4) Stay high in the mountains, but not too high. If you fly high above the ridge on a windy day you are not taking advantage of the strong ridge lift just above the top of the ridge.

5) When flying along the ridge and climbing, only stop in a very strong lift and climb just above the top of the ridge. It is better to fly a bit slower while climbing than flying fast and stopping to climb.

6) Plan ahead! Fly fast if you are just above a long ridge, but slow down and gain altitude if there is a valley crossing or a mountain pass ahead. Aim to arrive to the next ridge at a reasonable height (roughly half of the height of the ridge).

7) In the mountains, always stay high enough to not get stuck. Flying slower might cost you few seconds, but getting stuck will cost you minutes! The more experience you gain the lower you can fly.

8 ) Try to fly in a straight line while flying below the top of the ridge. Deviating to enter every crease of the ridge does not gain much altitude, but costs a lot of time.

9) It is not a good idea to overtake more experienced pilots if you are lower. They probably fly slower than you for a reason...

10) Avoid the sink like a plague! Even if you are high above a low ridge, it can still increase or decrease your sink rate depending on if you fly upwind or on the lee side of the ridge. Stay focused and be aware of the terrain below you.

11) And most importantly, join a community voice chat and don't be shy to ask questions!

12) Listen to people when they give you good advice and be prepared to learn.

[janjansen]

Slow down in lift but avoid extreme manoeuvres. Rapidly going from 240km/h to 120 to then accelerating back to 240 is not efficient.

This is something I have wondered about, and I suspect condor does something "wrong" here, like maybe simulating too much drag in pull ups? Or too much sink before and after a thermal? A long time ago I did a little test: I used a standard class plane to ensure I was not using sub optimal flap settings. I flew a short track with thermal helpers enabled. I flew it once at constant speed, completely ignoring the thermals, ignoring sink and lift and just flying a constant MC speed (not chasing the needle) through lift and sink until I reached a certain thermal, then pulled up and climbed.

Then I did it again, but this time making sure I flew through the thermal center (barely deviating from course), speeding up in sink before the thermal and pulling up in every good thermal along the way, and making 100% sure I sped up again before reaching the sink after the thermal. I overdid it, just to ensure I would not loose because of flying through sink slowly.

Comparing both tracks, on the second flight, I reached the last thermal later and at a higher altitude, both of which you would expect, but comparing the ghosts, netto it gained me absolutely nothing. The altitude I lost in the first flight was made up exactly by the longer climb time in the thermal, both tracks where exactly as fast, and that cant be right, unless i did something wrong?

Here is the video of the second flight, and you can see the ghost of the first flight:
https://youtu.be/_xxqshjIi4Q?si=-8FqUNebCtYMMsMN&t=62

Maybe we should create a mini offline competition with a <50Km or so straight line flat landscape task with the finish at the same height as the start, no thermal variability, and let anyone fly it, with thermal helpers enabled, and see who does it fastest and what the winning strategy is. Lets call it a condor drag race Id be very interested in seeing the results.

[k6chris]

Watching a clip of the video was interesting. IRL the speed changes in dolphin flying are nowhere nearly as aggressive (or should not be!), as the G forces you would be pulling do indeed create a lot of drag and there is a danger you are accelerating in the sink, which is very inefficient. I seem to remember a rule of thumb that unless you can stay in the lift for a minimum of 8 seconds, dolphin flying is less efficient that simply routing through the best energy, though I can't tell you where I heard or read that.

[janjansen]

here is a danger you are accelerating in the sink, which is very inefficient

I made doubly sure I accelerated before reaching the sink (much more than I would normally do flying "by feel"). Looking at it again, I did pull up fairly aggressively, probably more than optimal, but I still find it weird that spending that much more time flying in a straight line at 5m/s doesnt net you a meaningful (if any) advantage.

I seem to remember a rule of thumb that unless you can stay in the lift for a minimum of 8 seconds, dolphin flying is less efficient that simply routing through the best energy

It cant be that binary. For a given thermal size/strength there will be an optimal strategy, amount of Gs to pull or whatever. I dont know what it is, I also dont know what the drag penalty for pulling Gs is, but in condor the strategy seems to matter surprisingly little, and ignoring even very wide strong thermals doesnt seem to cost you much if anything.

[wickid]

The loss is in flying slow. Yes you gain more height but at the cost of a lot of average speed. Better to mildy slow down than to pull out all the speed and dive again. I stay within 20 kph of MC speed as Witold also suggested. It works the same in real life. There is no point in slowing down to almost thermalling speed if you don't intend to circle.

[janjansen]

There is no point in slowing down to almost thermalling speed if you don't intend to circle.

If you circle, your ground speed is zero. If you fly slow through a (very wide) thermal, not unlike a ridge, you climb at a similar rate for some time (higher even through the center), while having a ground speed of 120+ KmH (and at 1G instead of a >1G turn). The only way for that to not make sense is that all that energy gain from the thermal is lost by pulling up and accelerating again, both the drag from the G forces + the vertical distance you fly; there is clearly a trade off there, and there will be an optimum that will depend on size/strength of the thermal, but it cant be that the optimum is always completely ignoring the thermal. Imagine a 500m or 5Km wide "thermal". Clearly you will adjust your speed. Its just a matter of how much/how aggressively is ideal.

Anyway, Ill make a short task so we can put the theory to the test.

[wickid]

I didn't say completely ignore. You still fly through the lift. But slowing down costs a lot of average speed. Slowing down to 120 kph from 200 kph looses you like 15 to 20 seconds. That is 40 to 60 meters you need to gain over a plane that keeps flying 200 kph. You are not going to gain that much more than the plane who justs keeps up the speed. Keep in mind that the plane at speed is also traversing the sink faster if you don't time the pull correctly.

It is the same with following every indent in ridges. You lose a lot of average speed for relatively little gain in altitude. Most of the time just flying straight and accepting slightly less lift gets you to the next thermal so much quicker that you make up the lost altitude in the stronger climb that you do circle in.

[Bre901]

It is the same with following every indent in ridges. You lose a lot of average speed for relatively little gain in altitude. Most of the time just flying straight and accepting slightly less lift gets you to the next thermal so much quicker that you make up the lost altitude in the stronger climb that you do circle in.

Moreover, the best lift location depends on the ridge transverse profile and sometimes on wave conditions above, it's not always on the ridge crest line.

[janjansen]

Slowing down to 120 kph from 200 kph looses you like 15 to 20 seconds. That is 40 to 60 meters you need to gain over a plane that keeps flying 200 kph. You are not going to gain that much more than the plane who justs keeps up the speed.

assuming a purely thermal task, and zero variance thermals, the plane that maintains its speed through thermals is going to have climb the "lost" altitude by climbing at zero kmh groundspeed. So I dont buy the argument that you decrease your avg speed just because you slow down. Better to slow down now than stand still later. If pulling up ends up being slower then its because of the losses in the pull up, including the extra distance you fly vertically by zooming up and diving down, and/or imperfect execution.

My point is, I feel pretty sure that Mc Cready theory is correct in theory . The reality is different because you cant change speed instantly let alone time it perfectly or do it without energy losses. How much you loose by varying your speed (both in reality and condor) when executing "perfectly" is something Id find interesting to quantify.

[wickid]

Assuming both planes have to thermal:

The plane that slows down every thermal to 120 kph gains 40 meter in altitude but looses 20 seconds to the plane that just keeps flying fast. The plane that flew fast maybe gains only 20 meters flying through the thermal at speed. After 5 pullups both decide to thermal in a 3 m/s thermal.

The plane that pulled up arrives a minute later. The plane that flew fast has already gained 180 meter. The advantage of pulling up was only 100 meters. So 80 meter loss.

That is exactly what Witold and I mean. Pulling up does not nearly gain you as much as you think it does. Most of the time you are at the incorrect speed through the sink of the thermal, almost wiping out all the gain you had from pulling up.

Best test I found was on final glide. You can clearly see the difference pulling up makes agains just plowing through at speed. Usually it is around plus 20 meters of DDH at speed and maybe 40 if you pull up agressively.

[6266]

My point is, I feel pretty sure that Mc Cready theory is correct in theory . The reality is different because you cant change speed instantly let alone time it perfectly or do it without energy losses. How much you loose by varying your speed (both in reality and condor) when executing "perfectly" is something Id find interesting to quantify.

Some weeks ago I finished reading a book written by Jochen von Kalckreuth in 1975, nearly 50 years ago. He wrote that he ignores Mc Cready most, because the speed changes are too expensive. Nevertheless he flew minimum one world record. I think that is interesting and I started to do it too (not flying a world record, but ignoring Mc Cready). Will see, if I will get faster.

I think it's the same direction like witor and wickid wrote.


My favorite sentence about theories: The difference between practice and theory is greater in practice than in theory

[witor]

Nice discussion! That's exactly what I was hoping to trigger.

Please keep the advice coming. Here is another one:

12) Plane A on my super high-tech graphics below will have a better climb rate than plane B.

Blue arrows show the wind.

[wickid]

I don't ignore mccready. It should be seen as a guide. It gives a good target speed in still air. And i vary maybe plus/minus 20 kph depending on the lift or sink.

[6266]

I don't ignore mccready. It should be seen as a guide. It gives a good target speed in still air. And i vary maybe plus/minus 20 kph depending on the lift or sink.

Of course, but in my limited language skills I wrote "ignore", but I meant nearly what you wrote, only better than me

Guiding is a good word, not following the needle each second

[janjansen]

Created a task:
https://www.condor.club/showtask/0/?id=24603

Flat task, bombastic thermals, zero variability, no wind; helpers allowed, no penalties (except cloud). DuoDiscus only. I flew it once to test, took me 24 mins messing up a few times, closer to 20 mins should be possible for some of you. But Im mostly curious what the winning strategy will end up being: "dolphining" from thermal to thermal, or slowing down moderately in thermals or going full bore. How much zigzagging turns out to be ideal.

Ill create a new thread for this mini-competition, could be a fun summer challenge.