formation ridge soaring (gliders)

[Keith Smith]

One of the coolest things I've ever seen. The northbound run (second half) is the best:
http://youtu.be/aob5JxEFTw0

Adjusting position in formation flying when you don't have a throttle control is non-trivial....these guys do a good job. Stunning visuals.

[Keith Smith]

I had no choice but to try to replicate some of this in X-Plane. Hardest part was finding the field It's 1L8 (Dick Stout airport). hills pretty much matched what I was seeing in the video, including the second ridge further east. I set the wind to the same as they reported in the video, launched off the winch from rwy 36, turned east for the ridge, entered the lift band then followed the ridge south. Good times. We have go to try this on PE as a formation event at some point

This is the view above the airport facing south so you can see the ridges:

ASK21_2.png (7.01 MiB) Viewed 1950 times

This is the view after turning around and facing north, back towards the airport:

ASK21_1.png (5.86 MiB) Viewed 1950 times

[Greg.M (Scaber)]

Very cool. I recently revisited Omarama (NZOA) to replay some of my flights from 30 years ago. Wow, these new gliders are so much better than the ones I used to fly! I'm going to try this out too, thanks for sharing.