Book | Torrey Pines Gliderport

THERMAL FLYING BOOK

Isabela Weir — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 20:19:19 +0000

Thermal Flying is the world’s best-selling guide to the art of thermalling and XC flying. Cross Country’s team has been hard at work thoroughly revising and updating the title, line by line, and the design and photography has been refreshed to bring it bang up to date.

Learning to climb well is probably the most valuable skill of all in free flying, but it can be an incredibly frustrating experience. Burki Martens’ Thermal Flying has been written as a guidebook, and whether you have one hour or a thousand hours’ airtime, you’ll find it incredibly useful.

Hundreds of photos and illustrations make technical concepts come alive and easy to understand. Technical theory is kept to a minimum while real-world experience and practical advice help you grasp tricky concepts easily.

Thermal Flying Includes comprehensive instructions on:

How to predict and find thermals
How and where thermals form – sources and triggers
Different types of thermal models
Windward and lee-side thermals
The theory of temperature gradients
Vortex ring structure and lift distribution in thermals
How to read clouds and weather

Plus hundreds of helpful tips on:

Soaring, staying up and top-landing
Coastal flying and sea breezes
How to core thermals and get to cloudbase
Valley winds, mountain flying and magic air
Flying the flatlands
XC tactics from first flights to 100km

Thermal Flying has been published in 15 languages and has sold over 50,000 copies worldwide. This third edition brings the art of thermal flying to a whole new generation of pilots. Burki Martens is a multiple XC League champion and an excellent coach and communicator.

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Advanced Paragliding Book By Gavin McClurg

Isabela Weir — Sat, 31 Jul 2021 22:40:06 +0000

Written by Gavin McClurg, edited by the Cross Country team, and packed with insight from the very best, Advanced Paragliding is aimed at all intermediate pilots up, to help them build on their foundations and progress. There’s a big focus on aerology, meteorology, psychology, safety and risk-management. If you have 100 hours or more and want to go places in paragliding, this is for you.

Advanced Paragliding draws on over eight years’ of in-depth interviewing with over 100 of the world’s best pilots. With Gavin’s incredible popularity among a listener base of 30,000+ pilots, this book is set to be a massive worldwide success.

“This book is an international curated collection of voices, experiences, perspectives, and approaches to the sport that we all love. It is the undeniable power of the lead gaggle, with the best pilots in the world sharing their knowledge. And it is not just about techniques. It is also about the philosophy of adventure, the value of accepting risk and managing it, and the importance of training the mind as well as the body. It is about the flying life.” – Bill Belcourt

18 ‘secrets of champions’ chapters include incredible insights from Adel Honti, Alex Robé, Armin Harich, Bruce Goldsmith, Chrigel Maurer, Cody Mittanck, Dustin Martin, Honza Rejmanek, Jeff Shapiro, Jocky Sanderson, Kelly Farina, Maxime Bellemin, Nick Neynens, Pál Takáts, Rafael Saldini, Russ Ogden, Thomas Theurillat and Will Gadd

“Every 20 years a seminal work is published that pushes the measuring tape forward in terms of knowledge base. When I first started flying, Dennis Pagen’s ‘Secrets of Champions’ gave me glimpses into the minds of the best hang glider pilots in the world. It helped me improve drastically. ‘Advanced Paragliding’ is a ‘Secrets of Champions’ on steroids. It features a true treasure trove of stories, teachings and other gems. Many of my paragliding idols reveal ultimate tips and tricks to fly far, fly safe, and fly fun. If you fly paragliders this book will make you better. Kudos to Gavin: this is a resource that will better our community.” – Nick Greece

OVER 14 TECHNIQUE CHAPTERS INCLUDE:

How to Thermal Better
How to Glide Better
How to Navigate ‘Intermediate Syndrome’
When to Step Up – and When to Step Down
How to Tweak Your Mental Game
How to Avoid Accidents
How to Kill Complacency
How to Throw Your Reserve
When and how to approach SIV training
How to Fly Competitions
How to Fly Big XCs – learning to fly faster
How to Recover from Frightening Experiences
Threat and Error Management: what we can learn from other aviation disciplines

The book also includes pilot self-assessment and gives guidance on personal progression, using mentoring techniques. In terms of skills development, Advanced Paragliding sits at the top of the stack of Cross Country’s existing range of books, which includes Paragliding: the Beginner’s Guide, Fifty Ways to Fly Better, and Mastering Paragliding.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gavin McClurg is an outstanding writer, pilot and communicator, who enjoys the respect and appreciation of tens of thousands of pilots worldwide for his Cloudbase Mayhem podcast series. Gavin is an established adventure pilot and Red Bull X-Alps pilot

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Thermal Flying by Burkhard Martens

Isabela Weir — Wed, 26 Feb 2020 21:47:02 +0000

This hardback book is a comprehensive guide to thermalling and cross country flying – every pilot should read it. It is chock-full of priceless information on concepts, techniques, and reading conditions, including illustrations, and is suitable for beginners and experienced pilots alike. Thermal Flying is peppered with experts’ tips and the author’s own personal experiences and is beautifully illustrated with succulent photographs.

9.5″ x 6.5″ hardback, 260pp, 2nd ed.

ISBN 978-3-00-040212-8

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The Torrey Pines Gliderport History

Isabela Weir — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 20:42:13 +0000

As “Air Capital of the West,” San Diego boasts a rich history in aviation that began with glider flights by John J. Montgomery in the 1880s. By the 1930s, gliding experienced a renaissance as an inexpensive means to take to the skies. Gliders dotted the West Coast with pilots testing their designs in the prevailing sea breeze. Locations such as Torrey Pines attracted pilots from all over the nation for their idyllic conditions, where humans could soar with birds over the sea. These early pioneers helped define soaring as a sport and left an indelible mark on American aviation. Of the coastal gliderports of the 1930s, only one remains today, the Torrey Pines Gliderport – an aviation landmark that has become famous around the world with aviators who share this unique resource through multiple forms of non-powered flight.

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