Help on Sloap Soaring

MaxTheFliteFreak

Active member
Hello, I'm a newbie to the flying aspect of the hobby and I'd like to get into sloap soaring as it is relaxing and you get long flight times. I recently built a little 3 channel glider that looks like something between an FT Sparrow and the Dreamflight Alula. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for flying? Any advice is much appreciated. Thankyou!
 

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MaxTheFliteFreak

Active member
Hello, I'm a newbie to the flying aspect of the hobby and I'd like to get into sloap soaring as it is relaxing and you get long flight times. I recently built a little 3 channel glider that looks like something between an FT Sparrow and the Dreamflight Alula. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for flying? Any advice is much appreciated. Thankyou!
Appollogies for the grainy image, I don't have the best camera.
 

Tench745

Master member
Hello, I'm a newbie to the flying aspect of the hobby and I'd like to get into sloap soaring as it is relaxing and you get long flight times. I recently built a little 3 channel glider that looks like something between an FT Sparrow and the Dreamflight Alula. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for flying? Any advice is much appreciated. Thankyou!

What sort of tips and tricks are you looking for?

I'll start with some basic things I learned first:

-You want a nice big hill facing directly into the wind with few to no obstacles upwind of it to create turbulence.
-It's hard to crash a plane in strong lift.
-The steeper the slope the more lift you'll get, so cliffs are easier to learn on than little humps in a field.
-Avoid trees. They cause turbulence when you're behind them and they like to grab planes out of the sky no matter where they are.
-Keep the plane facing into the wind the whole time you're flying. If the wind is strong enough to be slope soaring, don't turn back towards the hill. If you do, you can easily get blown back over the top of the hill, or pushed into the slope.
-The plane gets moving real fast when it's flying downwind towards you and flying upwind can be very difficult.
-If you somehow get behind the crest of the hill, just land. There is a lot of turbulence from the wind flowing over the hill and it will be happy to slam you into the ground from whatever height you happen to be at. Flying through that turbulence to get back to the face of the slope is rarely worth the risk.

These are general rules I have. I am no expert, so keep that in mind when exercising them. There are times when they won't apply; only experience will tell you when you can break them.
 

MaxTheFliteFreak

Active member
What sort of tips and tricks are you looking for?

I'll start with some basic things I learned first:

-You want a nice big hill facing directly into the wind with few to no obstacles upwind of it to create turbulence.
-It's hard to crash a plane in strong lift.
-The steeper the slope the more lift you'll get, so cliffs are easier to learn on than little humps in a field.
-Avoid trees. They cause turbulence when you're behind them and they like to grab planes out of the sky no matter where they are.
-Keep the plane facing into the wind the whole time you're flying. If the wind is strong enough to be slope soaring, don't turn back towards the hill. If you do, you can easily get blown back over the top of the hill, or pushed into the slope.
-The plane gets moving real fast when it's flying downwind towards you and flying upwind can be very difficult.
-If you somehow get behind the crest of the hill, just land. There is a lot of turbulence from the wind flowing over the hill and it will be happy to slam you into the ground from whatever height you happen to be at. Flying through that turbulence to get back to the face of the slope is rarely worth the risk.

These are general rules I have. I am no expert, so keep that in mind when exercising them. There are times when they won't apply; only experience will tell you when you can break them.
Thankyou very much for that advice!