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September 17, 2007
Subject: Musings...
Cruising at FL 410 last week going down to Mexico City and the outside air temperature was -76F degrees. I was sitting in my short sleeved shirt enjoying lunch and less than a foot away from me it was very cold with a 480K windchill factor.
While all flights require forethought and planning; going into a foreign country, at night surrounded by very high terrain and thunder storms along the route adds a bit of color to the situation. MMEX has a 150 degree course change while transitioning to the instrument approach for the runway 5R ILS and includes several altitude changes, speed and configuration changes and then usually ends with a request from the tower to side step to 5L. A lot of planning goes into a well executed approach like this.
Our sailplane flying requires forethought and planning, too. As we all get increasingly comfortable with this newly aquired skill we must not allow ourselves to get away from the basic precepts of our training. One of the most important is to plan the flight (from start to finish) and then fly the plan. Planning in the air with our hands full of glider is difficult at best. We train hard and fly easy. Make your plans on the ground then go flying with plan A and plan B and plan C if necessary. It always better to be on the ground wishing to be in the air than the other way around. In 8 months we'll be back at it again. Steve.
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