Introduction

Here are assorted reading materials. Read them with an open mind, and without initially considering your own goals and ambitions. Consider the ideas that are behind these comments.

How do they apply to you?

An article written by Hal in 2002, republished recently on the Williams Today Forum, and used here with permission from Hal.

Cross Country Instruction 2002
By Hal Chouinard

As a rookie to gliding and having no experience with cross country soaring I wanted to find someone who would be willing to do instruction. I did a little browsing on the Internet and came up with Charlie Hayes from Palamino Soaring. He operates out of Air Sailing which is a well know facility 25 miles north of Reno. If you haven’t been there it is worth the trip. It is a in a beautiful desert valley surrounded on three sides by mountains. They have a nice clubhouse and hanger as well as a lot of friendly folks to talk soaring with. They have a lot of the older style gliders and of course the latest glass ships. I arrived there on Saturday of Labor Day weekend at 11:30 and the place was hopping with glider activity.

Charlie had some earlier flights scheduled so I enjoyed watching all the activity and looking forward to my retirement years when hopefully I could camp out at a place like this and just fly every day. We actually didn’t take-off until about 2:00 and honestly I was a little concerned that I would have a good cross-country experience.

The day (according to Charlie) was an average day and this proved accurate as initially we had trouble getting off the valley floor and almost were shot down early. We were flying in a duo-discus (an awesome glider). With some help from Charlie we worked our way over to the Pyramid Range southeast of the airport and got our first good lift there. As we would do the rest of the day we were flying cloud formations and circling occasionally. We set the speed ring 4 knots and tried to fly accordingly.

There was some blue between the Pyramid Range and the eastern end of the Pine Nuts so as Charlie put it we “juiced up” by thermaling to about 13k and headed across. We worked cloud formations on the eastern end of the range and began “dolphin style flying” along the Pine Nut Range. Charlie noticed a lot of sun on the higher peaks and felt we could make the best time if we flew directly there without circling. We arrived at the peaks and lift was not apparent. I made some slow turns looking for some up air but I was not finding any. Charlie took over when we were about the level of the peaks (9K) and began searching for lift. He eventually found it when we were about 8,500 feet. The lift was lower on the mountain slope and initially the thermal was very difficult to center. I think this situation surprised even Charlie but it was one of the best lessons of the trip. We were able to circle in zero lift so as Charlie put it “as long as your not loosing altitude you can afford to continue the search”. We would later hear on the radio that another pilot from Air Sailing had trouble in that area and had to land out.

All along the way Charlie is offering suggestions (more left rudder etc.) and giving out a lot of valuable information on thermaling, cloud formations and landing out sites. To me cross-country flying is largely composed of making one decision after another. Charlie’s decisions were always right on the money! We also had some great conversations along the way. It turns out that we both learned to fly gliders with Jim Indrebro.

From the Pine Nuts we got under some major cloud development and we able to fly relatively straight. This was the most beautiful part of the flight with spectacular scenery and cloud formations. As we gained altitude the air was cooler and when you close-up the Discus is gets very quiet even at the higher airspeeds we were flying. We ran along the clouds, which on that day seem to provide the best lift well inside the sunny edge. It was a real education in cloud formations; flying close to varga, some hail, and of course great lift. We continued south to approximately the Sonora Pass area and reached our highest altitude of 15.8k. At this point I think it was about 4:30 so Charlie said it was time to head back.

On the way back we were able to take a different cloud street, which took us over Heavenly. At times I had to keep the speed in the green range while attempting to stay out of the clouds. I guess at some point you would have to use the spoilers but that never happened. After Heavenly we headed across a small patch of blue and found a cloud and lift over Carson basically on the edge of the class “C” airspace for Reno. We were able to get high enough to cross over to the Truckee area and proceeded to fly anther Cloud Street until we were opposite Nervino. At this point the sun was very low and we had run out of clouds.

Charlie had me glide down to Herlong, which is 30 miles northwest of Air Sailing. We were in pretty quiet air at 11k so with Air Sailing at 4300 feet I am thinking we are using something different than 3 miles for every thousand feet. Charlie worked me to the end by flying a strict speed to fly with zero lift. We arrived over Air Sailing at about 7.5k. That Duo Discus is amazing!

The flight was 4 hours and 40 minutes covering about 250 miles with a 10k gain in altitude. Charlie really gives you your money worth! I know this kind of a flight is routine to veteran flyers but for me it was something very special and I recommend it and Charlie to anyone who has not had the experience.

I was reasonably comfortable during the flight but when I tried to get out of the plane the old knees were pretty locked-up. I was OK after about 10 minutes but it gets you thinking what it will feel like in about 5 to 10 more years. Probably more Advil would do the trick!

Using Google, I wanted to locate a few meaningful comments that might support a key concept in becoming qualified to fly cross-country. I enterd this phrase... "there are no shortcuts" , and I came up with the following quotes....

There are no shortcuts
Found while seraching the internet
By Peter Kelly

"Be true to the game, because the game will be true to you. If you try to shortcut the game, then the game will shortcut you. If you put forth the effort, good things will be bestowed upon you. That’s truly about the game, and in some ways that’s about life too." - Michael Jordan

"There are no shortcuts in the quest for perfection." - Ben Hogan

"People who enjoy what they are doing invariably do it well." - Joe Gibbs

"When it comes to success, there are no shortcuts." - Bo Bennett

"There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs."

"Nothing can come of nothing." - William Shakespeare

"People create their own success by learning what they need to learn and then by practicing it until they become proficient at it." - Brian Tracy

"You have to work for it. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure."

"It takes a lot of devotion and work, or maybe I should say play, because if you love it, that's what it amounts to. I haven't found any shortcuts, and I've been looking for a long time." - Chet Atkins

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