KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

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KRONFELD ON GLIDING & SOARING
From the above remarks the value of these new possibilities
for a flight along a course will be clear. The
special advantage of the new form of flying lies in the
increasing number of combinations to which it opens up
the way. We can now spring from slope to slope, from
slope to cloud, from cloud to slope or from cloud to cloud.
Soaring, which formerly was closely bound to slopes, is
now almost set free from them.
And not only can we fly under the clouds ; we can also
fly in and over them.
Let us first try to force our way into a cloud. Sometimes
this is quite easy, but often enough there are difficulties.
Generally the upwind under a cloud is divided stepwise ;
at each stage we climb quickly for a long time ; then we
find ourselves hanging in a layer in which we make little
progress. But soon the rapid climb recommences.
The last step we have to climb is the base of the cloud.
As, rising upward, we enter the cloud, we are met on its
threshold by stormy gusts, and matters become worse when
we are really inside, for the rounded mountains of the
clouds, the wonderful dragons and other fantastic figures
which children see in them, are caused by the motions of
the masses of air within each cloud.
Even for old and experienced motor-plane pilots flights
inside the clouds form a difficult problem. When an
empty space is dark, no one in it can see ; everywhere there
is nothing but blackness. These are the conditions that
a pilot encounters in clouds, with this one difference, that
the space is not black but white, and in this whiteness you
can see just as little as in the dark. He who has failed to
train his flying sense and powers of observation of flight
conditions in good time will surely be found wanting, for
one important thing is lost to us :—the horizon line.
%< Flying blind " needs practice. Most soarers have not
at their disposal the variety of instruments with which the
motor-pilots are provided. Often, too, the dampness of
the cloud interiors causes the speedometer to strike work,
in which case our sole resource is to fly by ear—by exact
attention to the well-known, regular tones of the bracing
wires. And now all that we have previously learnt fully