How to fly straight and fast

[Crakob]

Hi there. I like to fly with ghosts once in a while to improve my skills.
But I noticed, that often, I am not able to follow in straight flight. (I use the original startime and wait-time etc, so conditions should be the same)


The ghost, like O9, KOE or some other good pilots, seam to fly a tad faster and still gain more height meter by meter
. Even being directly in their tail and trying to mimic those movements, obviously I’m missing something.

So, what is the way to do it. ? React with the rudder to slightest changes of the vario? ( I’m not talking about pull-ups in thermals)

Thanks for your advice

[wickid]

Hi there. I like to fly with ghosts once in a while to improve my skills.
But I noticed, that often, I am not able to follow in straight flight. (I use the original startime and wait-time etc, so conditions should be the same)


The ghost, like O9, KOE or some other good pilots, seam to fly a tad faster and still gain more height meter by meter
. Even being directly in their tail and trying to mimic those movements, obviously I’m missing something.

So, what is the way to do it. ? React with the rudder to slightest changes of the vario? ( I’m not talking about pull-ups in thermals)

Thanks for your advice

I'll try to explain what I'm doing and I'm by no mean claiming this is the best way. But I've been told a few times I'm difficult to follow in dynamic flying, so here is what I think:

What I've found it that slowing down too much costs you a lot of average speed for relatively little gain in altitude. You have to fly faster in transitions if you fly too slow through the lift, negating any gain you had from pulling up. So what I tend to do is only slow down moderately in lift (maybe 20~30 kph max from my cruise speed) and only slow down all the way if the lift is worth turning in.

When slowing down don't forget to move the flaps correctly. When pulling you need to be in positive flap sooner. When pushing you need to be in negative flap earlier. The LX flap tape is dynamic with load factor. I use that as a guide. But in general, being in more negative flaps is less detrimental that being in too positive flaps I think.

Next thing that is really important is anticipating. Start slowing down the moment you feel the lift starting to increase. The vario has a little delay (a bit less with HAWK). So you have to be slowing down a bit earlier than the vario indicates. Same with increasing speed again. Best to accelerate in the lift. Accelerating in sink costs a LOT of height. But, do not pull up aggressively. That increases the AoA and causes a lot of drag. So be very smooth on the controls.

Last thing is position. The area of best lift is not that wide. You have to nail it. But without taking too much detour. Detouring costs a lot of speed as well. I have Relative bearing and VMG and TSK SPD at the top of the LX screen. I'm always trying not to have VMG drop below my average unless the lift is really strong. And when deciding on a line, I try not to fly more than 30 degrees either side of the course I need.

When following someone, you still have to feel your own line. If you pull up when the one ahead of you pulls up, you are too early. You still need to feel the air and not blindly follow what they are doing. You should see it as a loose guide on what to do. You can never time it exactly the same.

Hope that helps. The above seems to work for me.

[cloudyifr]

Wicked that explanation is pure gold. Would you have a link that you'd be willing to share with us of your LX9070 profile? I wasn't sure what to search for at the LXNav website.

Thanks
Curtis
Montana

[Crakob]

Hi wiek,
Yes, thanks for sharing

[ryanto]

Yes, thank you Wickid, interesting post

[wickid]

Wicked that explanation is pure gold. Would you have a link that you'd be willing to share with us of your LX9070 profile? I wasn't sure what to search for at the LXNav website.

Thanks
Curtis
Montana

I'm still tweaking several pages as I'm also intending to use this profile in RL. And there I need the waypoint and airport menu to also be useful. So I haven't uploaded it yet. Here is the main page I mostly use:

I have some others above and below for cloudflying, final glide over terrain, airspace avoidance and some other useful stuff I don't need all the time.

[CircusOz]

Wikid, as mentioned before , the techniques you've described are pure gold big thanks for these insights.

[cloudyifr]

Thanks for the screenshot, I've updated my Profile, a bit more flight testing is required.
Curtis (CS3)

[Jannes]

When pulling you need to be in positive flap sooner. When pushing you need to be in negative flap earlier.

Interesting... I use to do the opposite: when accelerating - flap negative sooner, when pulling - flap positive later.

Mainly because of this exact reason:

But in general, being in more negative flaps is less detrimental that being in too positive flaps I think.

Of course, g-forces are a factor, but I definetly want to avoid too much drag.


@wiek I noticed your LXNAV layout has relatively tiny numbers. Does that work for you in VR? I had to make my Boxes way bigger than in my reallife LX profile, because too low resolution on my Valve Index

[wickid]

When pulling you need to be in positive flap sooner. When pushing you need to be in negative flap earlier.

Interesting... I use to do the opposite: when accelerating - flap negative sooner, when pulling - flap positive later.

Mainly because of this exact reason:

But in general, being in more negative flaps is less detrimental that being in too positive flaps I think.

Of course, g-forces are a factor, but I definetly want to avoid too much drag.

Purely looking at how G-loading affects the polar you need to have more positive flaps when pulling up. It is the same as adding water ballast. The LX-flap tape reacts to G-loading changes. But I agree, don't do it too soon.

@wiek I noticed your LXNAV layout has relatively tiny numbers. Does that work for you in VR? I had to make my Boxes way bigger than in my reallife LX profile, because too low resolution on my Valve Index
Unbenannt.PNG

Yes, on my quest3 I can read this perfectly fine.

[arneh]

Of course, g-forces are a factor, but I definetly want to avoid too much drag.

Actually it's angle of attack which is the determining factor for flap setting. Although g-force and AoA do correlate to some extend as both increase when you pull the stick and decrease when you push. But not at same rate at different airspeeds.

[Vertigo]

But in general, being in more negative flaps is less detrimental that being in too positive flaps I think.

Thats what my intuition would say too, but I dont think its actually true. Glide ratio is L/D. There is no exponent in that fuction, Increasing drag is no worse than reducing lift, its just easier to grasp. But all that matters is by how much you increase or decrease lift and drag, and would need to look at the polars to determine that. Its difficult to find good data, best I can do is this idaflieg polar for an ASH25

Seems to me that if anything, flying too slow for your current flap setting (IE, flaps too negative) is actually worse than the opposite. Staying in too positive flaps 20+KmH beyond the ideal switching point gives a relatively small penalty. When you go in the other direction, switching to negative too soon by a similar amount, you may need to imagine where the line would go, but it seems like the L/D would plummet (even taking in account the X axis doesnt start at zero).