Hi there,could anyone give me a hint on how to accomplish the first glider mission? Takeoff - no problem. Flying thermals - ok. Passing the first gate - check. But now I reach the hills at Tahoe and am supposed to use the updrafts to gain enough height to pass the next three gates all in one go. Which means I'll have to climb to at least FL120-130.I'm gliding up and down those hills (yup, parallel to them) but can't seem to find any noticable updrafts. The few that are there will never get me to altitude in the 30 minutes the mission is supposed to take.Also I noticed that the hillside facing the wind has even LESS of an updraft - although the instructions state that it should be the other way round.Any hints? Where and how exactly should I fly to find usable updrafts?Regards,http://www.bremmekamp.com/img/misc/avsim.jpg

I just read in another post that "ridge lift" is probably the term I should've been using instead of "updraft". So if the above message didn't make sense to you, this'll hopefully clear it up.Still, the actual question stands... how to fly those ridge lifts in the above mentioned mission?Regards,http://www.bremmekamp.com/img/misc/avsim.jpg

The secret of gliding is in two things really, the trim and your position, to clarify that:Unlike a powered aircraft, in a glider your only means of controlling the speed (apart from climbing or diving) is to use the trim (which is very often the method used to control speed in powered aircraft too BTW), this means that the trim control is your best friend in a glider.What you should aim for is to be slow in rising air and hammer the speed in areas without lift. To know where these are, you need to monitor the variometer (the audio bleeping thing) very carefully, and watch the rate of climb indicator.However, the way the variometer works (in real life) is to take an average of what has happened in the past few seconds, and report it as a serious of either happy sounding high pitched bleeps or wails (meaning you are going up on average), or low pitched depressing bleeps or moaning sounds (meaning you are going down on average). A flat regular tone will mean fairly neutral air (meaning you'll simply drop at the glide ratio of the aircraft, assuming you have it in good trim, which for a typical modern glider is about a drop of 1 foot for every 40 feet you travel forwards).This can mean that you could hit a thermal but only hear the news when you are a good way through it, so you have to use a bit of intelligent guesswork to centre yourself in the thermal and then turn slowly well within the core of that thermal. Therefore, throwing the thing into a turn the moment you hear the bleeps may actually put you in, or out of the thermal depending on which way you turn. Incidentally, in the real world you can look for birds or other gliders turning in thermals and save yourself all this hassle by using that clue. Protocol in the gliding incidentally, says that the first glider in a thermal that starts circling should be followed in the direction of its turns (for safety reasons) similarly if you find yourself heading towards another glider, you are both supposed to turn to the right to avoid conflicts. This is why all turns in a glider are preceeded by a good look in the direction you intend to turn. Decent lift attract lots of gliders!Another thing you need to consider is that turns in a glider should be a lot steeper than in a other aircraft, this has the advantage of keeping you in the area of lift, and means that both the left and right wings are closer to one another in terms of angle of attack, thus reducing the risk of a spin (which means developing a feel for the buffetting you get on the elevators when you are getting dangerously slow is another vital skill, and in FS that means a feedback joystick will help a lot). Also keep in mind that in turns your stall speed increases (and when thermalling, you need to sustain a well co-ordinated turn), so add some speed to be safe (experiment at above 5000 feet to determine what you can get away with). You'll also find that you have to give gliders a hefty bootful of rudder to kick them into a co-ordinated turn because there is no propwash acting on the tail surface, and the long wingspan of most gliders means that they are very prone to adverse yaw (the effect whereby your aircraft wants to yaw the opposite way to the intended turn you have banked for, cause by the increased drag on the wing on the outside of the turn). Do bear in mind that when at high speed in a glider (i.e. when you are dashing between areas of lift) you should avoid large rudder deflections as at high speeds you could quite literally break the tailplane off by inducing too much sideways force on the tail!Back on the subject of finding lift however...Ridge and wave lift generated by hills and wind require a different method. This lift is simply the wind following the contours of the land, which means the wind hitting a slope will rise, and on the other side of the hill it will drop as it again follows the contour of the hill - note that this 'dropping air' can exceed your maximum rate of climb, so is generally to be avoided!The trick here is to realise that as you get higher, the lift moves out away from the face of the hill, so rather than track back and forth along a hill in the same position, you need to move outwards, although if you are very lucky, in strong winds you can slow right down, point away from the hill and sit virtually motionless over the terrain while you go up and up in the ridge or wave lift as you balance your forward speed against the oncoming wind.Wave lift can act like a ripple on a pond too, which means that it can propogate out from a hill for many miles and get you up to well above the cruising altitude of commercial airliners (don't forget your oxygen). A clue to spotting this kind of lift is the formation of a cloud by the lowering pressure of the air as it passes over the hill; these clouds are easy to spot as they look like a lens in cross section and is why they have earned the name 'lenticular clouds'. I don't know whether the FSX cloud textures are sophisticated enough to actually model this real-world phenomenon, but that's a handy thing to know if you ever have a go at the real thing :-)By now you should be realising that gliding gives you far more appreciation of what your aircraft is doing when it flies and a good appreciation of how weather extremes can affect aircraft :-)Have fun.

Thanks for the effort, it's appreciated. It doesn't answer the actual question though: how exactly to proceed to solve the mission mentioned. The theory is clear - it's just that for me it didn't seem to apply to the scenario in the mission. Thermals were no problem (as I said), but I just didn't seem to hit those ridge lifts, on either side of the hills, no matter if flying across or alongside them.If you or someone else could try that mission and is able to complete it, I'd still be grateful for hints on this specific part. I glided over those hills for an hour and really got nowhere.Which is a pity, because as you said gliding really is a unique and enjoyable experience overall. :)Regards,http://www.bremmekamp.com/img/misc/avsim.jpg

When I had a go at that mission, I completed it in what you might regard as a bit of an 'inventive' way:What I did to get to the hills was climb very very high by thermalling in the initial spots, then go for a dash to the last few gates, then converting the speed into height, in this way I did not have to rely too much on the ridge lift to get me up there, rather than simply maintain the height.This is fairly accurate in terms of the real world, as generally speaking on most days, ridge lift requires a fairly stiff breeze and even then is generally very localised.Wave lift, which is not the focus of that mission is by far the more likely type of lift that would be sought to achieve the kind of height required, but since it is often dependent upon the wind speed bearing a correlation to the terrain to propogate a wave effect, it's a comparitively rare phenomenon in comparison to thermal and ridge lift, and decent altitude from thermals on a hot day is a far more reliable bet than ridge lift, which would generally just keep you above the cliffs tracking back and forth rather than offering the possibility of massive rates of climb on all but the windiest of days.So, I would do it the way I achieved it if I were you, which is to get the most you possibly can out of the first thermals you encounter, then dash for the other gates.

In the real world ridge lift and wave lift is much more reliable than thermal (convection) lift, wo when you find it, you stick with it. I found the mission very easy to complete simply because it was so familiar to me after 12 years of gliding! - all you have to do is run parallel to the ridge in up current, and start by moving AWAY from the gates - the natural inclination is to turn toward the highest gate but that's not how to take advantage of the ridge. Get your height, by running back and forth parallel to the ridge face, moving closer or further from the face to seek the best lift using the variometer, then turn at right angles to cross over the ridge heading toward the lake. Over the lake you will find some strong propagating wave lift that will easily carry you up as you finally turn toward the gates, approaching from the `low` end. Dont' try to stay close to the gates as you climb, that's not how it works in a glider. You go where the lift is, gain all the height you need then use the glide ratio to keep the rate of descent and approach angle pretty flat as you get to the gates. There is no need to try to make a dash for the gates, if you start a couple thousand feet above (the altitude of the gate is marked on it), you could easily make the gates from as far away as 12-15 miles (using the 40:1 glide ratio mentioned above). In this mission you will only be 2-3 miles away so have plenty of time and altitude to play with, so don't dive for the gate.Finally, and again this is not made compellingly clear in the Learning Centre, the glider has several reflex flap positions (where the flaps are angled up to reduce drag, not down to increase lift - the Maule has the same) and these are used to control your speed when in the midst of lift. In thermals you slow to best rate of climb speed and allow the glider to be lifted in the column of air. With wave or ridge lift, speed is actually slightly more important so you can get back to the area of lift more quickly. So F5, then F7 (flpas down) for thermalling, once the variometer is screeching, but F5 then F6 (flaps up into reflex) when wave-riding or ridge soaring for the extra speed and ground coverage.You'll soon get to know which position is which by looking at the flap lever in the VC. The reflex positions can be used to trade speed for lift and you also carry water ballast which in strong thermal activity you might want to dump - but for penetrating ridge lift you need the extra weight and wing loading. It is very poor form to have to use the airbrakes in flight when you can adjust the lift/drag ratio of the wing with such precision.The purpose of the Mission is to demonstrate all three types of lift, so don't hug the ridge, move out over the edge of the lake and see what happens there.Allcott

The amount of lift you will get from the ridge lift in this mission is only slight when compared to the lift in the "normal" thermals over the farm land. But there is enough lift to get through all three hoops in one pass once you get high enough to get through the first one. Flying at the right glide speed is helpful and setting the flaps can be important too. Using full negative flaps wouldn't be a good idea and using too much positive flaps will cause problems too. I had good results with neutral or 1 notch of negative flaps. You can also dump your water ballast if you want to climb a little eaiser, but you'll be trading off speed by doing that.

I did the mission about two weeks ago and succeeded in one go, to my own surprise, because it was my very first glider flight ever. Anyway, what I wanted to say: you can see the thermals in that mission but to my surprise the thermal near the last three hoops wasn't visible! Did anyone here see the thermal near the last hoops? There was a thermal visible above the mountains, where I was coming from and when I flew in the direction of the hoops I could see a thermal in the distance, but not near the last hoops. I did however hear the beeping and so on at a certain moment and the man told to to go up somewhere around that spot. At first I thought I still had to fly to the thermal in the distance, but soon I found out it was too far away. And the man said after a while that I drifted off to far. So I turned around, flew towards the hoops and lifted in the thermal just relying on the bleeping sounds. I have to say it was a very satisfying experience to fly through the last hoops without the visual aid of the thermal: it was just like the real thing (apart from the hoops of course ;)).But I wonder if they left that visual thermal out on purpose or that it was some sort of a bug or something.I did try to do a free flight with the glider later on but somehow I do not like to see all those thermals in the air, not quit realistic, but without them it was quit hard to get up in the sky well enough. Maybe I will give it another try sometime.

I just followed the instructor's guidance on that one, I can't say whether I logged 30 minutes or more like 45 (there's no actual time limit). What I did do with the first set of gates was use the ridge lift to get above them, then dive through them, I know technically I'm supposed to climb through them but as long as you hit all three the Sim doesn't care, I actally missed one as I couldn't quite lose enough speed AND altitude so had to come around.Then you go through the wave lift bit, which is easier, I got the little lady up to 15000 feet on that one, before hitting the gates. Then just follow the instructions to get you back to the airfield. I've actually fallen for the glider in this as it's much easier than it was in FS9 due to the up and down currents in the air. I think what would be nice is maybe an animated diagram in the Learning Centre that shows exactly how the air flows over the hills and mountains so that you can see where to find ridge lift and wave lift.I tried on my own over Shoreham, but using real October weather wasn't such a great idea, couldn't find any lift at all but that said it did look as though the clouds were well modelled, huge flat looking circular ones in areas of lift, I just didn't cut the string in the right place to reach 'em before I ran out of steam so I guess that's pilot error. Ended up putting 'er down in a field. LOL

Many thanks for all the very helpful tips and suggestions so far! I'm gonna give it another go today and also check out the learning center before I do. (Never occured to me after I read through it in FS9. ;))Regards,http://www.bremmekamp.com/img/misc/avsim.jpg

I must say it's nice to see that I'm not the only person on this forum who enjoys gliding in the real, as well as the simulated world :-)So a big hello to all you fellow glider pilots, and if you are from the UK, you'll be pleased to know that I am currently working on creating some realistic scenery to work in conjunction with the UK VFR stuff for the Peak District. I want to be able to emulate my real world experiences gliding from Camphill in FSX.Those of you who know that airfield will no doubt enjoy the experience, and those of you who've never flown from Camphill will doubtless think anyone who has is insane :-) Shame there is no winch launching in FSX, but it may be able to be cobbled together from the SDK.The other thing I need to do is recreate the FS model I produced of the SZD 50-3 Puchacz training glider (you can still find it in the file library on avsim BTW if you are curious, it depicts the first glider I ever went solo in). That model is a bit long in the tooth now (since it was done for FS98), with no flexing wings or animated surfaces, you can also tell how old it is by the fact that the figure of me in the cockpit is wearing a baseball cap, something which as you all know is now 'a big No No' at most gliding sites :-)I think it's great that FSX offers the possibility to allow two people to fly the same aircraft, which has massive potential for training on piloting, and indeed gliding, so two seat gliders will be fun. Looking forward to that :-)Anyway, happy landings everyone.

Chock, if you enjoy gliding try condor (www.condorsoaring.com) Its simply awesome especially the flight physics and simulation.