Whatever the strategy of any long descending glide, degree of success depends in great part on effective, efficient technique.  Of course it’s imperative to always fly exactly the appropriate speed for each individual moment, but there’s more to it than that.  Every little deviation from absolutely straight and level means a longer flight path, plus additional drag from corrective inputs.  Meanwhile each fluctuation in ambient air will push you further off course unless you respond immediately.  When a wing rises by itself and you level it, that causes adverse yaw and instantly puts you off course – unless you use rudder too while leveling that wing.  The longer your glide goes on the more these little things add up, costing precious altitude upon arrival at your destination.  Here’s an example from a prior era of the Crystal Squadron. 

Two soaring pals left wave at 17,000 feet, gliding in identical sailplanes from the Devils Punchbowl here at Crystal downwind toward the Sierras.  When they arrived at Owens Peak 85 miles north, the one who flew a teeensy bit more carefully had lost three hundred feet less altitude than his buddy.  This enabled him to fly straight on up the range without pause, while the other pilot had to stop and climb.  It separated them by miles, and they never saw each other again that day.

The disparity in altitude lost compared to the great distance flown on that one glide was 0.067 percent, or less than seven ten-thousandths!  A very small difference, but impossible to recover once that energy’s been wasted.  To get the very most out of every glide, carefully manicure your bird’s attitude in all dimensions, each moment, with utmost thoughtfulness.  There is no other way!  

Imagine a hill or mountain of any size, with rills, gullies or canyons running together from all sides toward the top.  Now visualize a gargantuan tree growing from it, made of thermal lift.  Its roots originate low in surrounding draws and grow together where the heads of tributaries meet.  When two or more roots join they push each other UP, accumulating kinetic mass times velocity squared, and flowing toward a large central current (the tree’s trunk) above the summit.  From there, lofting into even cooler air, the whole bundle continues to expand and accelerate.  In this way, one weak thermal scarcely wide enough to circle in down low may swell into a rampant, miles-wide brute high aloft. 

Say you begin among tight foothills nearly encompassed by rocks or trees, with one sure route to safety.  It’s either climb or retreat.  At first you may need to turn tight and reverse directions like a barn swallow until your thermal merges with one from a neighboring ravine.  Then you feel enveloping energy swell with each clawing step up the hill like the growth of a newborn flying tiger.  Grab its tail and hang on!

This same sequence of redoubling continues at ever greater scale until the biggest, strongest lift has been collected above the highest peak for miles around.  If mountains are steep with narrow crests like we have here at Crystal, booming lift from opposite sides of the great watershed will collide overhead in huge volumes.  Above there, lift may quickly weaken, or continue yet another vertical mile depending on the temperature spread (potential for overdevelopment is a function of humidity).  Inspiring to be a part of. 

The divine reality of such soaring potential should have some kind of special name, and since no one was here to stop me I coined one.  Okay, two.  YGGDRASIL is most appropriate, but it’s hard to say and almost nobody knows what it means.  (Scrabble players, look it up!)  So lest a listener think you’ve got something stuck in your throat, here’s another, tastier name for the ultimate over-the-top treat in any soaring playground:  BIG CANDY !   

The opposite occurs later, as high ground cools and these diurnal processes reverse.  Cold air from aloft flows down-slope, flushing away from hills into low areas, our magical tree melting into the ground.  Winds are always named for where they flow from, so these are known as ‘mountain’ winds.  They’re essentially all sink — until they flow against some obstacle, solid or atmospheric, and who knows, maybe head back up again… 

A brilliant student on his third lesson posed a question that I’d mulled many times myself but never heard aloud.  “The positives of soaring are too many to count,” he said, “but what should I be most afraid of?”

Hmm.  Takeoff?  Landing?  Traffic?  Weather?  I settled on the surest way to poop in any of these beds: “Not thinking… and not keeping up.”

Mind is the glue that holds the whole shebang together, and the fidelity of cognition governs risk.  Your own brain, left unattended, might be the single greatest threat, for it never stops cranking away whether anyone’s in control of it or not.  Most of what we do in life involves complex thought and favors precise action, but no activity demands continuous, extemporaneous improvisation in many dimensions more than soaring – all while we’re hurtling through the air at highway speeds with our very bodies at the tip of the spear!  Each moment presents new arrays of potential to either consider or ignore, crucial options to seize or dismiss, and even those choices require slivers of time to deliberate…  Tock tick.

Time not invested mentally is time lost.  Falling behind in the execution of ongoing processes invites a vile magic, accelerating time and ceding serve to the Devil.  As in takeoff for example.  Or landing, or traffic, or weather.  Or Lucy at the fudge conveyor.

Soaring is safe if you THINK concisely about what’s happening NOW, and it’s scarier than driving a car if you don’t.   Brrr!