My biggest learning takeaway from this years race was about speed....More specifically, optimising glide ration depending on headwind or tailwind.
This diagram provided by Jug from Flymaster USA sums it up. This is available in a slide presentation that Jug used as a presentation last year a number of times.
In the switching winds and inversions of the high pressure days we had here in Woodrat this year, constantly adjusting your speed was essential. Flying at Woodrat was a bit like driving through Lassen National forest on the way here - an constantly undulating roller coaster road. Just like in driving, you needed to constantly ease on or off the gas if you are going to maintain speed. In the last days, my glide ratios on single transitions of just a few kilometers ranged from 40:1 to 4:1, due to flying across convergence areas, inversions and through the numerous broken thermals that we encountered. This was very different from last year, where the flying was either on (thermal) or off (glide). It really was necessary to almost constantly be adjusting your glide as the conditions changed, as well as watching and feeling the air and other pilots to look for areas where the glide was better.
The big surprise to me in the graph is that when you have a tailwind, you actually need to fly with a little brake for best glide. The only time you would probably break this rule is if you had excess height on final glide, and could afford to burn height just to reach the line fastest.
This need to speed control explains the near obsession with speed systems of top pilots. I watched on one of the rain days as master technical pilot Josh Cohn spent several hours fiddling with his speed system or helped other pilots with theirs, replacing the normal pulleys with large diameter ratchet pulleys and 5mm diameter cord to take as much friction out of the speed system as possible. This is all designed to reduce the muscle fatigue that occurs with pushing more than 1/2 bar for more than a couple for minutes. When top pilots are racing, they are either thermalling, or on speed bar so you have to be able to spend 2-3 hours pushing with your legs at both constant and varying pressures.
An interesting observation Josh made in one of the mentoring sessions was that racing pilots almost never take thermals to the top. The reason is that their is usually a sweet zone in thermals, where the lift is most effective. If the thermals are abundant enough, racing the course in this zone is faster than squeezing the last 200m from a thermal at a greatly reduced climb rate.
The other big lesson for me is consistency. I had one OK task, one brilliant task, and another complete washout. While paragliding always has a certain luck factor, getting better is about removing any of the factors you can't control in terms of luck certainly helps.
This diagram provided by Jug from Flymaster USA sums it up. This is available in a slide presentation that Jug used as a presentation last year a number of times.
In the switching winds and inversions of the high pressure days we had here in Woodrat this year, constantly adjusting your speed was essential. Flying at Woodrat was a bit like driving through Lassen National forest on the way here - an constantly undulating roller coaster road. Just like in driving, you needed to constantly ease on or off the gas if you are going to maintain speed. In the last days, my glide ratios on single transitions of just a few kilometers ranged from 40:1 to 4:1, due to flying across convergence areas, inversions and through the numerous broken thermals that we encountered. This was very different from last year, where the flying was either on (thermal) or off (glide). It really was necessary to almost constantly be adjusting your glide as the conditions changed, as well as watching and feeling the air and other pilots to look for areas where the glide was better.
The big surprise to me in the graph is that when you have a tailwind, you actually need to fly with a little brake for best glide. The only time you would probably break this rule is if you had excess height on final glide, and could afford to burn height just to reach the line fastest.
This need to speed control explains the near obsession with speed systems of top pilots. I watched on one of the rain days as master technical pilot Josh Cohn spent several hours fiddling with his speed system or helped other pilots with theirs, replacing the normal pulleys with large diameter ratchet pulleys and 5mm diameter cord to take as much friction out of the speed system as possible. This is all designed to reduce the muscle fatigue that occurs with pushing more than 1/2 bar for more than a couple for minutes. When top pilots are racing, they are either thermalling, or on speed bar so you have to be able to spend 2-3 hours pushing with your legs at both constant and varying pressures.
An interesting observation Josh made in one of the mentoring sessions was that racing pilots almost never take thermals to the top. The reason is that their is usually a sweet zone in thermals, where the lift is most effective. If the thermals are abundant enough, racing the course in this zone is faster than squeezing the last 200m from a thermal at a greatly reduced climb rate.
The other big lesson for me is consistency. I had one OK task, one brilliant task, and another complete washout. While paragliding always has a certain luck factor, getting better is about removing any of the factors you can't control in terms of luck certainly helps.