Pure Speed - My Fastest Cross-Country Glider Flight (173 kph average)

[@resiggy13]

Understatement of the year award: "Yeah, this works...15 knots."

[@leontrepesch2875]

Your channel is completely underrated! Love your tips, analysis, and the very useful visual extra animations, that help me a lot as an ongoing cross country pilot! Keep up sharing this informative and exclusive content! Greetings from Germany!

[@bradjackson9489]

Fantastic editing, filming and commentary. Knowing what you are doing and thinking makes this video easily one of the best. Hope to see more like it.

[@ChessInTheAir]

thanks!

[@eduardofaria3897]

Fantastic and instrtuctive video.I learned a lot. Greetings from POrtugal

[@davidnelson6603]

Thanks for sharing - I didn't get out west at all this year - I appreciate the comments you made - It helps with my learning 31DN

[@ChessInTheAir]

Thanks! Glad it was helpful!

[@jasonmcconathy9254]

Congratulations on an exceptional flight! The additional commentary and analysis is excellent and much appreciated. Installed my FLARM today so see you in the air tomorrow!

[@ChessInTheAir]

thanks Jason! - Boulder is totally inverted today so I won't be flying. Tomorrow looks very good though!

[@jirkamalej]

Living a dream eh ? Got to go visit Boulder for this. Epic flight, Epic Stats, Epic Video. Thank you very much. You made my day. Cheers. (Some music in the blue parts next time please )

[@dinos8557]

8Kt climb in straight flight, I wish I could find thermals to circle in that strong. Sure would increase my task speed.

[@mgclements]

I really like these type of videos, you can imagine what you might do in the same situation and compare. Making clear you thaught patterns is a great way to engage the audience, thanks!. BTW have to smile when you say 15kts, flat land UK half that is considered booming! (and rare)

[@ChessInTheAir]

thanks! I know I'm very lucky to be able to fly here. Have never flown in flat lands but will try sometime. I'm sure it's quite different - will be interesting to see how much applies of what I learned in the mountains.

[@PureGlide]

Awesome convergence line! Love it. I wish ours had little markers at 17,000 feet rather than big black things with 2500 feet bases sometimes :) I guess the main advantage is you can use them right up to the tops!

[@ChessInTheAir]

The big black things came later in the day when the camera had stopped recording. That's when I had the highest speed of the flight. My fastest Speed League leg was 125 km with an average speed of 230 kph. No circling. Effective glide ratio 2715:1. The cloud base at that point was around 22,000 feet - I struggled mightily to stay below 18,000 (Class A airspace) flying just below VnE for that altitude.

[@PureGlide]

@@ChessInTheAir Awesome stuff!

[@gercomar2892]

Awesome flight and very informational also! Would love to have seen more of it, hope you got that camera battery thing figured out for your next flights 😉

[@soaringhal]

Thanks for sharing - Colorado looks lovely :) I note I circle way more than you (did on this particular flight) :)

[@SailFlyTri]

Like hunting rabbits with a howitzer with tactical nuclear rounds...that is flying in Colorado compared to Michigan lol. Fun video thanks.

[@mustangthekitten7765]

which one is easier to fly

[@motionsiik4964]

This is awesome! Thanks for posting. I would love to understand the best routes to get into the mountains from Boulder Municipal

[@ChessInTheAir]

I had the same question and tried to answer it by analyzing >50 previous flights from different pilots on days when the conditions were challenging to climb out. This will help you: chessintheair.com/launching-from-boulder/

[@motionsiik4964]

ChessInTheAir Thank you! Great website and really nice job figuring out what most pilots do to get out of Boulder! They should have this at the airport for reference

[@christianhoney4244]

Were you thermalling that fast because it was a very windy day? Looked like you hat about 130kph while circling.

[@vansmangt2122]

Looks like you use quite low angles of bank, judging by the coaming about 30 degrees? That said it’s a cracking day. What’s your inter thermal speed? Type of glider? Water?

[@ChessInTheAir]

Good observation re: bank angle. However, my avg. climb rate was 3.8 m/s (almost 8 kts) so I might have been a little sloppy... It''s conceivable that 10 kts might have been possible, but the difference between 8 kts and 10 kts makes very little difference to the overall speed achieved (unlike the difference between 1kts and 3 kts, which is huge!). Type of glider is in the video description. I don't remember if I flew with water that day.

[@defaultgamer34857]

0 dislikes a month later, good job.

[@lautoka63]

And now 1 dislike (wasn't me). This is both interesting and making me jealous.

[@adamlhotak8180]

Is Naviter oudie a good choice for a nav? Do you use XCSOAR on it ?

[@ChessInTheAir]

Hi Adam, I use an Oudie IGC. The benefits: it has a bright screen that can be read in direct sunlight (like any Oudie, much better that typical smart phone screens). It is portable, I.e. I can use it in different gliders - eg I also fly our club’s DG 505 and occasionally one of the Disci and this way I can use the same flight computer - same when I travel to Europe or elsewhere - I can use what I’m used to. The Oudie IGC also has an IGC flight recorder and a built-in battery that lasts an entire day (enough even for very long flights). In terms of software, I use mobile SeeYou from Naviter (comes with the device). XC Soar (or TopHat) is great too, it just depends on what you’re used to and like. Mobile SeeYou is quite powerful but you have to really get to know it to figure it all out. Same with XC Soar though. I also like that I can download the weather forecast from Skysight and overlay it on the screen. Quite helpful, especially when looking for convergence lines on blue days. You have to check if the Oudie can run XCSoar or TopHat, I would think so, but I don’t know. Hope this helps.

[@90secondsofaviation86]

@@ChessInTheAir thanks a lot. I just completed my first solo so I'm just starting. I dont know what device is gonna put me in the right direction for the future or something that is gonna be easy enough for a beginner to use and eventually be able to use it in a more complex way.

[@PJH1111]

I hate it when the yawstring does that