Tips for flying in the bumps

[John Young]

... just to be flung forwards again to look down at the ground, 2000ft below....

This as I have already stated is the "part that I don't like".

I don’t really mind turbulence until the pitch gets consistently and violently changed [up or especially down].

Hou moed Ou Man – everybody hates it

Regards
John ZU-CIB

[Biggles]

That easterly is a real pain.

Did my solo nav a month ago, the route was FAFK, Malmesbury, Volvlei Dam, outlanding at a private strip 2 miles east of Perdeberg and then home. That morning an easterly had got up, ground conditions were good but it was pumping above 1000ft AGL. So change of plans skip volvlei, instructor left it up to me depending on conditions when to turn south for the outlanding (keeping away from the hottontots as the easterly comes over them creating some nasty conditions). Anyways, cruizing over Reibeek Kasteel, all nice and smooth, but I can see the clouds over the Hottontots and just know what is happening in the lee of those mountains. Turn and follow the berg river, cannot remeber what altitude I was at, 3000Ft if I remeber correctly. But private strip comes into sight so I start decent and assoon as I start the turning descent its like I was broad sided by a wave. The wing tipped until I was close to 90 degrees to the horizon!! corrected and had the bar full into my chest, half an eye on the airspeed and fought the wing for ever, when I came out I was 500ft higher than when I started!!! moved further away from the mountains and desended peacefully. I think I hit the up portion of a standing wave, or the shear area between the relatively still air in the valley and the easterly over the top.

[Morph]

Yep, sounds like a standing wave. You will either free fall followed by a climb or vice versa. If you remember where it happened and the wind direction, look on the map upwind and there will be a mountain 10 to 20 miles away that caused it. The worst thing about these standing waves is you will experience them at regular intervals as you get further away from the mountain, i.e. every 10 miles for example. This distance depends on the wind strength. Stay away from the leeward side of the mountain. If you have to fly through the leeward wide, do this as far as possible away from the mountain as you can safely get. Alternatively turn around and go around the windward side.

[Biggles]

Morphman, right as usual was over the berg river about half way between Perdeberg and hottentots, about 10 miles east of the hottentots in an easterly... must have been initailly ontop of the standing wave and decended into the up portion.

[Ou Man]

Thanx Morph.

Seeing that a South Easter does not come over the mountain at the same angle as an Easterly and rather blow parallel to the mountain ranges, would you treat the Cape Doctor the same way as the Easterlies?

[lamercyfly]

Hi folk.

Like I said in my earlier post, and I will repeat it, first look up to the sky and phone met, decide first whether it is safe to fly or not, and only then take to the sky, knowing what kind of turbulence to expect.

Much of knowing your local sky comes from hangar talk with the locals.

I cannot emphasise strongly enough the responsibility of instructors to hammer this lesson into students - learn to know your local conditions

One of the best ways of doing this is to hook up with the local hang gliding or paragliding school and pay the local gliding instructor to tell you a thing or two. Gliders do not have engines to take them away from bad skies. Their pilots have to learn early in the game when the sky is bad and when it is not.

Like a previous mail here said that he felt relaxed because there were paragliders all around him, and they where enjoying themselves, but if they were not there he would have cr....d himself.

Ja, the sky can be a pretty damn scary place if you get caught off-guard.

I got caught off guard in Turkey, flying at a little tourist town called Dalyan. Had the mayor in the back seat, and climbing through about 800feet AGL all hell broke loose. Anyway, with my hang gliding and gliding experience, I quickly figured out what was going on, and safely descended back to land.

Same as Cape Town, there was an upper wind blowing over a mountain ridge about 20km's away, causing wave rotor turbulence (this is the worst and most dangerous form of turbulence). There was no cloud to give it away, but I am sure that if I had called the local met office, they would have told me in broken english not to fly in Dalyan under those conditions. (There were no local pilots. I was the first trike pilot to fly in that area, hence the local hero status and taking the mayor for a flip ) The trike flip operation has flown successfully there now for 4 seasons, and when ever that wind blows, they dont fly. The first pilot I left there to fly for the owner, did refuse -on my advice- to fly when that particular wind was blowing, so the owner said he would fly. Ha!Ha!Ha!. He came down quicker than he went up, very embarrassed, and now it is a standard safety rule that "no flips when the wind comes over those mountains"

So, get to know the local conditions, and if you are going to venture further afield, all you have to do is exterpolate the local conditions into the foreign area you are planning to fly into, and hey presto, guess what, THE SAME RULES APPLY

And that, my friend, is how you actually learn to eventually know the sky and learn to broaden your horizons without spooking yourself.

[Morph]

Thanx Morph.

Seeing that a South Easter does not come over the mountain at the same angle as an Easterly and rather blow parallel to the mountain ranges, would you treat the Cape Doctor the same way as the Easterlies?

You are right the SE blows with the mountain ranges so it is safer to fly in them. Just avoid getting too close to the NW side of Paardeberg or Kasteelberg when a strong SE is blowing. I also find in these conditions the air to be quite unstable between Altona and Morning Star due to the hills to the south. As you go further to the north it stabalises and it's quite pleasant flying even in a strong SE. Wintervogel is great because there are very few obstructions that could cause mechanical turbulance or rotors. Morning Star is not nice to take off and land at in Fresh to strong SE's

[anagod]

How does on de-sensitise yourself to fly in turbulence? I fly a 10 year old Aerotrike Safari in Gauteng and the bumps give me the heebie jeebies. So do mountains. I am venturing further over my envelope every time and find the slow but sure approach is starting to work. I am getting less stressed as time goes by.

A thread elsewhere mentioned that you start flying later in the morning and earlier in the afternoon.

Suggestions welcomed

I used EFT. It worked for me.
http://www.emofree.com/
Everything you need to know is on the website. I suggest you download the free manual and read through it in detail.