How to fly fast and win online races

[janjansen]

One more thing about the 45s centering time; as witor and I already said, centering time is already included in the average climb rate, you are double counting it, and grossly exaggerating it. Here is a snippet from the last FAI qualifying race in the flats looking at the top players:

How many turns are being done with 0m/s average? Or even significantly below average ? None. I could not find one over the entire race. If you do ONE single 360 degree turn without climbing, thats ~25 seconds lost and you have more than likely already lost the race (from 1st to 6th in that particular race). If you do two of them every single thermal, you are going to be dead last (or maybe beat outlanders).

This is from the track from the last pilot to finish, he finished 115th a full hour behind the winner (btw respect for the perseverance!) :



There you will find several zero m/s turns, but even he manages to center the thermal faster than that most of the time, and he looses at least as much time while turning the thermal than he does entering it.

Now in your defense, vintage planes dont have a PDA and more important perhaps, no TE compensation on the vario. Thats going to make it a lot harder to find the center. But if that is the case, you still should not assume making 2x non climbing turns. Especially when you can turn at what, 60kmH? You should just calculate or estimate your average climb over the entire thermal, including centering time, and use that as a baseline for MC. And sure, it makes sense to reduce that if you are worried about reaching the next or next good thermal, but only then should you reduce MC, it shouldnt be your default, especially with modern planes and reasonable cloud base.

[janjansen]

. I assume any serious Condor competitor either has COTAS installed (or knows the IAS/TAS conversion by heart).

The good ones dont even need cotasa, they will fly right up to the speed where flutter starts to occur and keep it there. I know JJJ doesnt use cotasa, he doesnt need it and cant be bothered with it (same with xcsoar, he doesnt use that either). I dont think anyone likes races where "flutter speed flying skills" helps you win, but sometimes that is the case. Actually, usually it is the case for task starts (unless its a CC race with a maximum start speed, which I think should be the default).

There have been glider break-up where I fly in RL. Although by far the biggest danger is hitting a hill (or each other). Can't imagine a RL scenario where I'd deliberately choose to cruise above the green.

This is a random recent fast flight from Weglide:
https://www.weglide.org/flight/408788

Very often over 200KmH, and even up to 250. Of course, doing so only makes sense when the conditions are good enough, and RL conditions not often are as good as those we typically fly in condor.

As for breaking a glider in flight; by all means never ever exceed (or even get close to) manufacturer stated safety limits. But I think its unlikely you will break a modern glider (that has no defects or was not rigged improperly) in flight if you are not doing something horribly wrong. For reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6VBqsrD4FE
Thats a JS1 wing. The JS1 is rated for +5.2G. In that test the wing still didnt fail at twice that load, so over 10G, it was the test rig that collapsed. I would have blacked out a LOT sooner.

Guess the point I'm trying to make is that gliding is a sport of skill AND luck.

Thats also my excuse, but if Im honest, its almost always the same pilots that keep getting "lucky". Especially in multi day events, luck doesnt play that big a role.

[6266]

One more thing about the 45s centering time; as witor and I already said, centering time is already included in the average climb rate, you are double counting it, and grossly exaggerating it.
...
How many turns are being done with 0m/s average? Or even significantly below average ? None. I could not find one over the entire race. If you do ONE single 360 degree turn without climbing, thats ~25 seconds lost and you have more than likely already lost the race.

As I answered already yesterday I see my fault in that calculation, was surprised by the result of the calculation by myself. I used 45 seconds because I remembered a circle needs 45 seconds, but maybe I remembered wrong or the source was it. It was meant in that example to use one circle for centering. I never stopped the time for one circle.

Calculated again with the same plane without center time and Pilot A with MC 2 m/s against Pilot B with MC 1, result is, Pilot B has to achieve a climb rate of 2,22 m/s, ca. 10 % better than Pilot A to get the same flight time. That's what I do with success in my small environment, and this thought I wanted to share here.

I understood in this discussion too, that "online race" means maybe only JS3 flying, a little bit sad to reduce it to that (kind of) plane, but it's not my business, because I only do my own stuff.

<Offtopic>
We don't fly only planes without TE compensated vario, we define "Vintage" as all planes maiden flown until 1982, so today 42 years ago. With that definition we fly planes from SG38 and Grunau Baby to Pegase and LS4, highest DAeC handicap is ASW 20 with 110. And we are open for all planes on an extra result list, only condition is to fly without pda (the Vintage way). It's very interesting to compare all the different planes (and of course one day I will try the JS3 too, but it's not in my hangar yet )
</Offtopic>

[timbaeyens]

A glider circling at 100 km/h with 45° bank angle, takes a bit less than 18 seconds for 360° circle.

An older, lighter glider flying at 70 km/h, also at 45°, takes only ~13 seconds to complete a 360° circle.

Simple math.

Cheers,
Tim

[6266]

A glider circling at 100 km/h with 45° bank angle, takes a bit less than 18 seconds for 360° circle.

An older, lighter glider flying at 70 km/h, also at 45°, takes only ~13 seconds to complete a 360° circle.

Simple math.

Can you please share the formula for this simple math? Thanks

[timbaeyens]

The radius R of a turn for a sailplane can be calculated with the formula:

R=V² / (g×tan(θ))

where:

• V is the speed of the sailplane (100 km/h = 27.777... m/s)

• g is the acceleration due to gravity (9.81 m/s²),

• θ is the bank angle (45 degrees).

--> R= 771,8 / (9.81 × 1) = 78.7 m

The circumference of the turn is C=2πR = 494.6 m

The time T to complete one full circle is C/V

T = 494.6 m / 27.777 m/s ≈ 17.8 seconds

[6266]

Thanks a lot.

From R(adius) to T(ime) I could find out by myself, that is easy, but not the first part to get R. The square speed divided by gravity multiplicated with the tangent of the bank angle. I have to write it two times more, then I will have it in mind forever

Accepted as simple math

[alioth]

Right now I'm missing for other projects, but what helped me the most to fly fast when I started was:

1.- repeating several times the same flight (usually the tchin tchin, world cups, eurobattle...), flying different lines, comparing the flights and understanding why some lines were faster than others.
2.- Especially on the flat, study and put McCready's theory into practice.
3.- Surround yourself with hardware that is an extension of your body. You never have to think about doing something. Just do it. Condor commands, xcsoar, flight computer, etc... I built my own keypad so I had every command in the place I wanted closed eyes.
4- And for all races, fly close to Witor. This is what will give you the most speed

Arturo. AMS

[witor]

Great to hear from you Arturo! I haven't seen you racing in a long time... Any chance for you to return to Condor competitions?

[Geepers]

As for breaking a glider in flight; by all means never ever exceed (or even get close to) manufacturer stated safety limits. But I think its unlikely you will break a modern glider (that has no defects or was not rigged improperly) in flight if you are not doing something horribly wrong. For reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6VBqsrD4FE
Thats a JS1 wing. The JS1 is rated for +5.2G. In that test the wing still didn't fail at twice that load, so over 10G, it was the test rig that collapsed. I would have blacked out a LOT sooner.

First up noting that my knowledge and experience are rather limited - so very happy to learn something new that will change my mind. As I understand it (at this point) a ballasted glider, with weight distributed along the wings, would have the highest limiting airspeeds. Probably the worst case would be unballasted self-launchable twin seater where all the weight is in the fuselage. And it's not the wings breaking that would necessarily be the concern.
https://youtu.be/ZXjTaGjS3j0?t=51

Sure, that seems extreme but in RL who knows how many hard landings school/club gliders may have had. So tend to think the conservative approach best for RL.

Luckily in Condor we can assume a new glider perfectly built all the time.

Thats also my excuse, but if Im honest, its almost always the same pilots that keep getting "lucky". Especially in multi day events, luck doesnt play that big a role.

The quote about 'luck and skill' is from G Dale's "The Thermal Engine". Doubt that luck is going to supplant skill - more a situation where the outcome for a group of pilots of roughly equal skill maybe comes down to some luck. But if it's a choice between a 200 hour pilot and a 2,000 hour pilot (likely to be a large skill difference) then my money would always be on the higher hour pilot - don't care how lucky the other one is!

[Xavier]

When I read all the topics of this very interesting thread, I am a little bit surprised that nobody speaks about the task managing.
You can follow all the rules and be beat by a competitor that has access to the positions of each competitor via NMEA output with various software. NMEA output must be open if you want to make direct comments of a competition, which is a good manner to promote E-gliding.
The question is why!
There are several answers, but 2 seem important:
- Too long starting time window:
If the task starts at 0 pm until 3 pm, waiting in the proximity of the starting zone or starting the task without turning the first turning point, or following the competitors will give you a better thermal efficiency during your final flight, and it is a good idea to find the best strategy to follow.
- Too long first task leg:
The multiple starting possibility is fair, but if after half an hour of flying the first leg and coming back to the start zone and restart, will give you the same advantages as the first point.
So to have a good fair play in a competition, the starting time window must be restricted to 20 minutes or shorter. And the first leg reduced to 20 km or shorter.

[witor]

A short start window would mean that everyone could just wait to start right behind some good pilots and follow them. Not very fair - but this is a different story worth its own topic.

In this thread let's try to stick to 'How to fly fast and win online races' in a fair way and with good sportsmanship.

[janjansen]

https://youtu.be/ZXjTaGjS3j0?t=51

I said a modern glider with no defects. What the above proves is that a damaged or badly repaired glider is dangerous. Most likely, doing a sideslip would have put a lot more load on the tail and be way more dangerous in that plane than flying fast (and with no chance of bailing out if it failed catastrophically in a side slip on final approach as opposed to it happening at altitude). By your logic you better not do sideslips, and I just cant agree with that. It is however, a good reminder to take preflight and annual inspections more serious especially if you dont know the plane's history.

The quote about 'luck and skill' is from G Dale's "The Thermal Engine".

Im not familiar with the author /book or the context of that quote. For sure RL has more variability and unknowns than condor, and so luck can play a larger role . Though if his quote is a few decades old, modern meteorology is sooo much better than what we had last century, removing a lot of the guess work and "luck" eg when doing record flights. And when you do competitions, and especially grand prix style competitions, everyone has the same luck. Its really not luck that makes people like Kawa in IRL, or witor or JJJ in condor, finish on the podium almost every time they fly. Luck might decide who of them takes the win on a specific task by a few seconds, but its not gonna make me win more than once every 250 flights unless their computers crash or something.

[6266]

As I understand it (at this point) a ballasted glider, with weight distributed along the wings, would have the highest limiting airspeeds.

Here an interesting interview with Tilo Holighaus about ideas around the new Ventus E. Unlike AS and JS they place the batteries in the fuselage and see an advantage in doing that. AS and JS have the batteries in the wings. Taking that idea further it could be an advantage to have (parts of) the water ballast in the fuselage. I only know the Minimoa with water ballast in the fuselage, and that plane is not the youngest one

https://magazine.weglide.org/schempp-hi ... us-fes-en/

[wickid]

As I understand it (at this point) a ballasted glider, with weight distributed along the wings, would have the highest limiting airspeeds.

Here an interesting interview with Tilo Holighaus about ideas around the new Ventus E. Unlike AS and JS they place the batteries in the fuselage and see an advantage in doing that. AS and JS have the batteries in the wings. Taking that idea further it could be an advantage to have (parts of) the water ballast in the fuselage. I only know the Minimoa with water ballast in the fuselage, and that plane is not the youngest one

https://magazine.weglide.org/schempp-hi ... us-fes-en/

ASG29 and AS33 without engine also have a fuselage ballast tank in place of the engine bay.