CumulusX and simprobe as real-life soaring training-aids

[bruin 3]

After spending many hours this winter simsoaring with FSX and CumulusX! and Simprobe, since the start of the real life soaring season last april I noticed that my real-life soaring has improved dramatically.

Finding thermal lift under (streets of) clouds, being aware of the windfactor when deciding where to expect the position of the thermal under a Cu-cloud, centering and staying centered into thermals to get the optimum of lift, has become much more adequate, resulting in longer duration of flights and having more fun while flying. I already had three +3hr solo-flights in the last two weeks, where over the last two years my record was 50 minutes. This afternoon I even noticed that I was screwing around by letting myself sink to about 300m AGL on purpose and trying to pick up a thermal from there to get up again. So for the moment soaring has become more playing than sweating for me (the only thing missing is the reset-button).

And I am sure, that when I ever get to the mountains or to an area with ridges to fly in, the practicing with Simprobe will benifit also.

So thanks a lot, boys.

Bert

[Peter Lürkens 30]

Nice to here, but stay careful, the sim is not the real thing.

The training effect for thermalling I had myself too, already some years ago with the old Cumulus! program. Sinking low to recover in a new thermal is what our intructors actually recommend for x-country training, in safe proximity of the aerodrome.

When it comes to ridge soaring, be more careful. The ridges in FSX are probably much more accountable, than in reality. After looking somewhat more in detail into theories of orograhic flows, I know that our approaches are really strong simplifications. For example, in reality it may happen, that even at a relevant ridge, horizontal winds are simply deflected sideways, rather than vertically, and no ridge lift will be there. It depends in part on the same atmospheric stratification conditions which are relevant for thermals also. If you trust on ridge lift experience from FSX in real mountains, you may get into big trouble.

best regards,

Peter

[sf4JC 1]

THANKS for your feedback Bert , it really made me feel good :dancing: to know I am flying in a somewhat acurate flight simulator! And thanks again Peter for your warning to real-life pilots, but I'm having quite an experience with FSX thus far, even though, a sim is a sim. It's as close to real life as I'm possibly ever going to get.

sf4JC

[bruin 3]

Nice to here, but stay careful, the sim is not the real thing.

I noticed that today. Struggling in a thermal for half an hour and gaining no more than 100 meters. So indeed, the real thing is more unpredictible. But the gain is that now I keep fighting for it, using the skills I learned with CumulusX, and not give up so easily as I did before.

Bert