hey it's Greg from Flybubble here. let's talk about landing setups. so I'm flying
down here in some new area in the Pyrenees I've never been here before.
I'm guessing you haven't been here either. we're gonna pick a landing field
do a nice set up and I'll talk you through it.
tell you what I'm doing so we're approaching this village on glide
and I'm not really sure what the wind is doing down on the ground there's no
indication there's no smoke there's no wind socks. how am I gonna work it out?
I want to pick a nice field but the wind direction is critical so first
thing that I always do when I come down to a landing setup is at this sort of
height I do a gentle 360. do a 360 turn and look at where you are being
drifted in that circle. you do a steady circle and it'll become an oblong in
one direction and that'll tell you which way the wind is pushing you. once I've
done that I'll point into wind -- what I think is into wind from that circle -- and
I'll come on to a little bit of brakes and I just just hold it for a little bit
and I'll try and look down and identify my ground speed. I'm gonna pause it
there, you can see my shadow bottom left of the picture and I'm now pointing into
what I think is the wind direction. I've got a little bit of brake on and I
try to imagine myself running across that field and trying to chase my shadow
if I think I can run and keep up with myself then I'm probably pointing into
wind because that means it's about 20 km an hour or something like that
if I'm sprinting flat out. if I don't think I've got any hope of keeping up
with that shadow then I must be going downwind. so that's a little trick you
can use to just set yourself up right. now I'm gonna assume that this wind is the same
between my height now and the ground. that's why I did it fairly close to the
ground. there's still a possibility that the wind could be different in a shear
layer below and underneath the shear layer there could be a different wind
flow so as well as that I'm looking at the trees: those are my only other
indicators I can see here. and you're looking for the sort of silvery backs of
the leaves a shiny side of the leaves where the wind has flipped them over
and as you get lower you might be able to start to identify a little bit of a
push on the trees you can even see it from this height there's something
coming down from the right. so I have a look at this area. where are you gonna
land? what are you gonna pick for your landing field? things that
stand out in this picture that I can see: you've got some livestock across the
valley on the field there. I try and avoid the livestock fields and try and
find something that's nice and green. a lot of the fields are sloping so on
the far side they're not so easy to land on them I would prefer to land on
something flat ish and down in front of me I've got a nice big green field but
if youlook really closely you can see there's a power line cutting
along just up from the bottom of the picture, it's running right to left and
it crosses over that field and that's a major hazard! ok, electricity cables are
just to be avoided completely. probably your biggest riskiest hazard I mean
that's instant death. so let's just stay away from them completely. so I'm gonna
try and find something on the other side of the road and what's standing out to
me is a really nice double field with a big tree in the middle of it. it's nice
and big and green and there's enough space to get in there so I'm gonna look
at that one.
so now I'm approaching, coming a bit closer, you can see I'm looking at the
field. the camera is attached to my helmet so where I'm looking [onscreen] is where I'm
looking. that side quite big trees and lots of sloped ground, I don't even want
to look at that for landing. the village itself is quite compressed and lots of
houses so there's nothing in there and I'm just lining up for that field, it still
looks good. see there's a car on the road so the
road's probably out, having traffic on it. and let's just pause it there you can
see down the side of the road which is pretty normal you've got a telephone
line so you don't want to be crossing low and you don't want to try and land
on the road because you're gonna hook into the line with your wing. I've got my
power line running from where my shadow is at the bottom of the picture there's one
pole there, there's one pole beside the little white shed, and there's another
pole by the trees. so that's a power line hazard and I'm keeping myself ... I'm
basically flying down the power line now with enough height that I know there's
absolutely no question I can glide clear of this. so I'm using that hazard as my
sort of gliding line keeping it pretty close underneath me so that I can dive
over it very easily into the field at any point. I'm not directly over it
I suppose in case some massive sheer layer that you don't know about
folds my glider up and I descend straight down. I'm not actually over that
hazard I'm close to it so that I can bail off to the left if I need to. there
is an emergency bail out field which I have spotted to my left, you can see that
long brown strip. that's quite a nice run out so I could approach just over the
red roofed house and glide across the green strip and try and aim to land on the
brown strip but there the risk is that it is
sloped down towards the valley and the same thing applies to this field on my
right. ordinarily you'd expect the wind to be
pulling up a valley like this and going up towards and mountains behind me so
normally you'd have a headwind, I'd now be pointing into light wind in this
position and if you were trying to approach into this field with that
situation you'd have to be very careful because it is sloping downhill and what
looks like a big field could actually be a bit of a trap because you're gonna
glide down this field get slight lift with a headwind coming up the field and
you might end up gliding over and over and over all the way down the field and
getting stuck with the trees at the far end. so that's something to bear in mind
and if you do approach a sloping field like that you want to make sure you've lost all of
your height really really far back so that you know you can get into it but in
this situation the way that I've judged the wind I've now got the wind in my
back and I've got this field on the right I want to get into so let's go
downwind. now I'm looking at my speed over the ground and thinking mm it's not
particularly fast this way either ... so I'm guessing there's actually very
little wind at all and I might find that I've got a slight downward component as
I come into this field from this side. but that's okay, a good flare will get rid of
that. so I'm now coming over the end of my downwind leg, I'm going to do a base leg
across here across the back of the field and the whole time I'm looking for signs
of wind, any indication that there's low-level wind. I have a quick look over to the
left to see the other trees ... nothing there. back into the field. let's have a
quick squizz at the wind. right let's stop it there. we're looking at this as
our set up now you can see our main field that I've lined
up with the big tree on the left I've got a really nice long green approach
that I can land there but you've got that singular hazard in the middle of
the field -- the big tree. when you've got something like that you've got to be
careful of target fixation. if you're looking at the tree and you're trying to
avoid the tree you're gonna land in the tree. so let's look at that strip of
grass to the right of the tree, pick a spot there and aim for that spot. I now
ignore the tree altogether. it's not an option I'm not flying there I'm landing
on the grass. off to the right you can see another green field which would have
been a very good option to land in with the given wind direction -- I'm pointing pretty
much into wind now and that would have also been a very good option if it
wasn't for the power line that crosses directly across the middle. I would
stay away from power lines if I've got any options other than the power line
field I'm gonna use them but it's there it's nice to know just to place it
you've got that emergency there. if I came in with deep brakes from this back
right corner I could easily land there as well so I've got a little bit too
much height I don't want to end up gliding past this field and into the
tall trees at the far end so I'm gonna be make absolutely sure because the
wind is so light and I might be going a little bit downwind I might have got it
wrong so let's get rid of that last bit of height. I do a nice gentle turn and
I'm gonna do another nice gentle turn here leaning in keeping the speed nice
and high so I'm not doing any slow speed turns through the turbulence. and now go
hands up and I'm gliding into the field. remember to watch the grass not the tree
keep your eyes on the grass where you want to land and now go full hands up, get
nice speed, keep the glider fast and I'm touching brakes now! plop plop, touchdown.
cool another successful landing! I hope that's helped you identify how to get
into this sort of field where you haven't got any wind indication remember
to do your 360 nice and nice and high but not too high so that you're getting
relevant wind information for your landing. point into wind with a little bit of
brake just to double confirm that your ground speed is reduced, then you
approach your field looking for any hazards. pick the field that you've got
the nice clear approach and remember that you can land uphill it'll help you,
it stops your overshooting the field and don't forget to get your legs down and
about treetop height so you avoid any risk of landing on your bum. come in with
good speed, hands up and right at the last minute give it a good deep flare
and hold it in. I wish you many safe landings wherever you are flying.
Glider in the shade. Very disappointing ... just a big glide.
with no thermals, all the way from up there
down to here. Oof, that's a lot of effort for a top-to-bottom.
I'll go and get some food and drink .. and be merry!