A long time ago a very keen young pilot asked my advice. He was desperate to fly his first 100km flight in the mountains. So I explained that the difference between flying 30km and flying 100km in the mountains is planning.
The pilot was Tom Payne and a few weeks later we flew round a 100km triangle together – his first. Now I struggle to keep up with him when we fly together!
My logic, which has been proven out by many pilots after Tom is that if you can fly 30km you can climb in thermals and you can connect those thermals together, so what is stopping you doing that time after time?
The no plan man
Let’s first consider what happens if you don’t have a plan. Say you are flying in Annecy. You launch at Plainfait and after a bit of work you find yourself high above the teeth. What to do?
You see some gliders over the Lanfonette and further round to Forclaz. A few others have crossed the lake onto the Roc des Boeufs. You decide to be bold and cross the lake and after a surprisingly long time soaring the north end of the Roc des Boeufs you manage to get high again, cross back to Forclaz and before you know it you are back where you started.
You boat around for a bit but as you are back you wind off the height and land for a beer at the bar. A nice petit tour – nothing wrong with that. But if you want to fly 100km then you need to plan your route before you launch. Otherwise it is unlikely you’ll do more than the above. Here’s why:
1. When you climb out in that first thermal you need to know where you are going and strike out with confidence, otherwise you waste valuable time where you could be putting kilometres behind you.
2. As pilots we generally need to be familiar with where we are flying and our natural tendency is to stay with what we know. Clearly by definition if we want to fly further than we have before we need to fly into unknown terrain. But here is the point – if you have planned the route, on a map or on Google Earth, you are familiar with that new part, the part you have not yet flown, because you have studied it in detail.
3. When you have a plan you think ahead. When you don’t you think about where you have come from. Forward thinking is one of the keys to keeping moving.
How to make a plan
Let’s look at how to build a good plan for your 100km flight.
Look at your last tracklogs from similar XC flights. What was your average speed? This is important to consider where you will be at what time of day. Good XC pilots do 20-25km/h on average (the best mountain pilots on a good day can push 30-33km/h on top-end gliders). At 20km/h a 100km flight will take you five hours. Make sure you plan for that – food and drink will be needed to keep your concentration.
Think about which faces will work best at which times of day. SE faces work first and as the day wears on the sun works its way round so you should be planning your return on west faces. Use your expected take-off time and average speed to think about where you will be at what time of the day.
Consider the valley winds. Although on a good day you will want to be staying high and not dropping into the valley wind system, you still need to consider them, particularly after transitions where you may find yourself lower than ideal. If the valley wind is blowing you where you need to go then it can help cover distance fast – but don’t put yourself in the situation of having to fight it. Valley winds are generally less strong at the start of the day so some transitions that work early won’t later on.
Think through those transitions or valley crossings. How high will you need to be to make the crossing and arrive at the spur you plan to climb away from?
Of course there are some well documented classic routes but don’t think because they are classics you can just set off blindly and fly them – you should still go through the above planning because you need to understand the route and terrain before you fly it.
Get planning
Finally, planning has become high tech. There are all sorts of planning tools out there that will help show you thermals, routes and even the glide angle required for transitions. They are a fantastic resource and you can spend many hours looking at what others have done and planning your own route.
So, next time you go flying in the mountains set yourself a goal and plan a route for yourself. Study it in detail and then, when the weather is right, go out and fly it.
I cannot promise it will work the first time but, if it doesn’t, simply compare what actually happened to the plan. Were you too late at a certain point? Did you not have enough height to make a transition? You will be able to compare and learn and next time you’ll set out with a better plan! Sooner or later you’ll fly that 100km.
This article was first published in Cross Country 154. Jon Chambers lives in Switzerland and competed in the Red Bull X-Alps in 2011 (when he placed 5th) and 2013 (4th)
