Glider Record Attempt: First 1000 km FAI Triangle in Colorado - With Detailed Commentary
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- Опубликовано: 19 янв 2024
- On June 4, 2022 I launch from Boulder, Colorado with a daunting goal: to become the first pilot to ever complete a declared 1000 km FAI triangle in Colorado. My biggest declared triangle to date was 750 km and it took me seven unsuccessful attempts before it finally worked on the 8th try. This is the very first time I am trying for a 1000 km triangle. What are the odds of success?
There are many reasons that this would become one of my most memorable glider flights: I recall the difficulties I had to “connect” with the clouds after the start. The clouds looked great but there I was close to the ground, fighting to stay aloft. Then there is this moment on the second leg where I arrived in the lee of a major mountain range with a massive headwind and blue skies above. Turning around would have ended my attempt right there. Next came the crossing of the Colorado River and the plunge into a different airmass. Shortly thereafter I encountered my biggest nemesis on this flight: a massive cirrus layer rapidly moving into my task area. Over the next two hours I was caught in a constant race against these high clouds trying to kill the thermals. My thermals! When I thought I had finally put the cirrus behind me, virga obscured the approach to my last turnpoint. Should I keep going, make a massive detour, or throw in the towel? And how do I get across the Continental Divide standing massively between me and my last turnpoint, and also between me and getting home. And then there is the issue of thermals dying as the day comes to an end. There were very few moments to relax. Instead: decisions, decisions, decisions. Mentally draining and causing mistakes. I tried to be honest about those, too.
The flight lasted more than 9 hours and this video got to be very long. I hope you’ll watch and enjoy it anyway. But even if you don’t, I am glad I put the effort in as a memory for myself. And not just to myself. I have dedicated this video to the life of my flying friend Shmulik Dimenstein. This was the very last time Shmulik and I flew together and the very last time we spoke to one another. Only five days after this flight, Shmulik died in a tragic glider accident next to his home airfield at Riflle, Colorado. Shmulik was an excellent pilot who got caught in an unexpected, devastating microburst. I wrote about Shmulik’s accident here: chessintheair.com/invisible-m...
Shmulik’s death clouded my memory of this flight for a while. That’s one reason it took me so long to turn it into a video. But I’m glad I finally did.
You can find much more information about this flight on my website: chessintheair.com/epic-first-... My report also includes the detailed weather forecast for this day, how I studied it, and also the things I failed to notice. Every flight, successful or not, is an opportunity to learn. And this flight offers many lessons.
If you like this video, here’s more that you may find interesting:
To watch my other soaring videos: www.youtube.com/@ChessInTheAi...
To check out my website: chessintheair.com/
To follow me on Facebook: / chessintheair
All music in the video is from Epidemic Sound. I tried to pick tracks that capture my ever changing mental states throughout the flight. Enjoy! 
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Outstanding video Clemens! As a pre-cross-country student, I very much appreciate the decision-by-decision explanations. I look forward to reading the additional weather detail in your article!
Thanks! All the best for your XC goals!
First of all, congratulations on the amazing flight and video. Don't know what is more impressive, the 1000K task or editing 9 hours of video into a very interesting/concise 3 hour story of the flight. Really appreciate the effort you put into letting us in on the insight and planning for these flights. Got a real feel for the decisions, thought process and observations that run thought your head while making the flight. Thanks again.
Many thanks! High praise! I appreciate it!
Good lesson about timing the thermals for their climb rate. Teaches us to balance our odds, keeping the overall goal in sight, and sunset.
My gosh man! You pulled all of my heart strings! Massive congrats on the flight & very sorry for the loss of your friend at the same time. Clemens, you make the best Gliding video's of all that I watch from all over the world. Thank you, much respect & appreciation, Leo, from Australia.
That’s very kind of you to say. I’m glad you like it!
I found your video last night and it kept me up an extra hour. First thing this morning, I finished watching. Congratulations on your task! I am amazed at how hard it was and how you stuck it out for 9 hours! Well Done! Thanks for the video.
Thank you!
Clemens, first let me say sorry for the loss of your friend. Next, this is certainly one of the best gliding videos I've ever watched. Thank you for putting this together. I appreciate your commentary on both what you did correctly during the flight as well as what could have been done better. This helps us all learn. Congratulations on your well deserved records.
Appreciated the long video! Lots of great insights for cross country flying. Thank you and congratulations :)
Thanks! Glad you like it!
This upload is certainly worth the wait! The camera footage itself is a treat, but the captioning and graphics make this video a master class in cross country soaring. Selfish wish list: Overlays that continuously show altitude, vario, heading, and map position would make it even better. At that point, the only thing better would be actually being in the glider. Thanks for the master class. Hoping to see more!
Thanks for the comments and the suggestions. I’ll try to figure out how to incorporate some of your suggestions for future videos. What makes it particularly hard are the cuts and speed changes during the edit process. But I think it might be possible.
You had me squirming in my chair with all the frustrating misses of thermals around Long's Peak. Very well done!
Wow!!! I have just watched your entire video. I don't know how to express my gratitude for this video. I hope to some day fly a 1,000kms triangle myself. You have just taken me through the whole process in impeccable detail. I don't know what is more amazing: the fact that RUclips has allowed me this experience, the fact that you undertook the entire experience and filmed it - or more important the fact that you narrated your enire thought process.
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I have many questions to ask but for now.... I just want to say thank you so much for this video.
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I am sorry to hear about Shmuel Dimenstein and my condolences to his family - it is never nice to hear of a fatality in our sport.
Thanks for the kind feedback. I’m not the best pilot but I can remember a time not too long ago when I would have appreciated a video like this as a learning tool. If it helps you and others my objective is accomplished :-). Good luck with your soaring journey!
First of all, congratulation on your 1000km FAI flight. I am a glider pilot from Switzerland and it was a pleasure to watch your great video.👍
If I hadn't known in advance that you could do it, I thought several times during your flight that it wouldn't work.
Great flight an well done👏
Thanks a lot!
Thank you for the master class, Clemens! Truly inspirational!
Thank you!
Thought I would never make it through a 3 hour video but turned out to be a real nailbiter. Could be the next Netflix box set! Great flight, Challenging sky at the end...perseverance and good decisions paid off, well done and congratulations.
Aww - that's great! Thank you! Let me know if you have any contacts at Netflix, haha 🤩
Epic flight and great achievement, well done Clemens! 👍
I did appreciate that you mentioned an “Aussie” at the end. (Matthew Scutter of Skysight)
Thanks so much for this inspiring flight! Congratulations! I was watching all the 3 hours and I enjoyed every minute and learned a lot! Especially the race against the cirrus far from home was tense. I will take a lot from this for my future flights! Cheers!
Thanks for the kind comments! Enjoy your gliding adventures!
Best gliding movie for pilots to optimise their flight paths. ❤👌👍
Thanks for another great video and the shoutout!
Thanks! Just discovered your blog. Cool!
Terrific video with Great commentary, very enjoyable watching but a bit tense towards the end. 😅 Congratulations on a fantastic achievement well done.👏 🎉
Thanks for taking us along on the ride. I appreciated the long video and the especially the detailed comments.
If I may suggest, chapter marks and showing your position on the track and map more often would help watching it in parts. Oh, and the icing on the cake would be a quick insight in the weather for the day at the beginning.
Enjoyed it all and you had me on the edge of my seat around TP3.
Good suggestions, thanks! Glad you liked it.
Thanks for sharing.
A true inspirational flight!. Congratulations!. As a freshman im going for my first 50km and beyond.
Thanks and good luck getting your Silver Badge!
Congratulations for your marvelous and amazing flight!!!! Your video is very well done! All along, I felt like that I was at your place in the cockpit!! Again Bravo and Bravo!!!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
Congratulations on your 1000km FAI Triangle achievement, Clemens !
Congratulations. Epic flight and impressive perseverance given the uncertainties at play. Great commentary. And I really appreciate the beautiful scenery of Colorado, which I remember well from my childhood (I was born and grew up in Boulder until the age of 10 and my father was a glider pilot).
Hi Christopher, many thanks for your kind comment. I suspect you must be a close relative of the late Chi Pickett-Heaps. I know too little of the tragic story, but please know that since 1972 our club, the Soaring Society of Boulder, has awarded the Chi Picket-Heaps trophy to pilots who have contributed the most to the sport of soaring. It is our club’s highest honor and as club president it falls to me to give out this award to those who deserve it most. I would love to learn more about the background story. If you don’t mind, I would love to learn more. Please email me at ChessInTheAir@gmail.com if you are willing. Kind regards, Clemens
congrats and best xc gliding video on youtube. well done and keep on pushing
Thanks so much!
Great glide I stayed up till 2 am to finish the vid thanks for sharing 👍🇺🇸
A truely epic flight. You can sense the challenges of the task in many key spots. Awesome task speed especially considering so much of the flight was below 15,000ft. This is a terriffic cross-country training video.
Thanks! With respect to task speed, one can't be much slower and complete a 1000k - there's just not enough time in the day to do it (this is different further north - say Germany or Scandinavia) where the thermal day is much longer than in Colorado while the achievable speeds are usually lower due to flying at lower altitude). 117 kph is not that difficult in Colorado provided that one doesn't get stuck and is forced to take really slow climbs...
Great video, after 18 years of living in Golden, I never flew out of Boulder, all my hours were in So Cal, didn't think they would have the lift there.
This was tense to watch! Congratulations!
Missed you, Clemens! Congratulations on the record!
3:00:03 That reminds me of the A Brave New World album cover by Iron Maiden.
Congratulations on a great flight! I love your commentary and explanations of the decisions that you were making as you progressed. I often see videos like these in which the pilot makes very sketchy choices that could lead other less experienced pilots into flawed decisions based on bad judgment. Your choices carefully balanced safety and managed risk. Very well done! I am sorry for the loss of your friend.
Congratulations! Awesome flight, and so great that you can share this. I watched the whole thing, and really enjoyed it.
If you don't mind some constructive criticism, it looks like your left turns need a bit of work. They are sometimes too shallow, and you seem to be slipping towards the outside of the thermal, when the opposite is desired. I haven't flown a Ventus 2, but with most gliders I've flown thermaling works best with a little of outside rudder, i.e. the string going a bit towards the outside of the thermal; you do this in your right turns, but not (it seems) on your left turns. And a second comment (of course these things are hard to assess when one is not in the cockpit), is that it seems that when reach lift, you often turn a bit too early; at least looking at the vario through your video, in many of your thermals I would have waited a few more seconds to turn; the way I think about it, beyond "feeling it in your bum" is that it takes some 7 seconds to cross the circle, assuming 100km/h and 200m diameter.
Thanks for watching! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yes, you're right that I tend to over-rudder the left turns. It's a bad habit that has been surprisingly hard to shake off. Timing of turn is hard to tell from the video, in part because the settings on my old Cambridge vario were way too fast and could no longer be adjusted. Others noted the same thing and I've since replaced it with a modern S10). Because of the poor vario, I did the centering mostly by feel. The shape (and diameter if one can call it that) of our high-altitude mountain thermals also varies dramatically, with altitude and wind being huge factors. It's fairly rare to find a smooth thermal but the unevenness is often offset by strength such that average climb rates are often fairly good despite getting yanked around. Also a factor is the difference between indicated airspeed and true airspeed at out altitudes - more than 30% at 16,000 ft - it does not take very long to fly through a narrow mountain thermal... Thanks for the thoughtful comments!
@@ChessInTheAir Thanks for the insight. True, I was aware of the higher speeds at altitude with regards to cruising, but I failed to think that it also has to affect thermalling. Between the higher performance glider and the high altitude, 117km/h looks so leisurely compared to what I had to sweat on a Cirrus in the lowlands of Argentina! As for the vario, I was also about to comment that it looked a bit too nervous to me. Thanks again.
MAGNIFICENT and thanks for the commentary and notes very helpful from uk pilot
Awesome achievement!
Nice flight and video. Congratulations!
Thanks for this great video, and sorry for the loss of your friend.
No particular time reference, just enjoying this again, reminded me of the old Ball & Tounge saying. Step on the Ball! Visually I see it otherwise. Muscle memory knows the answer. If you love aviation, learn how to fly Gliders first (All of the experiences) I't's the best lesson you'll ever need to know about Aviation.
🐨🦘congratulations mate. i can feel your excitement and achievement. i thought i was happy with my 50klm . what's your next flight. Keith Australia 🇦🇺
The first 50k is a big deal, especially in a lower performance glider. Congrats! In Colorado, I think a 1250 may be doable but absolutely everything has to “click” and it may take years before the right opportunity arises. There are a few parts of the world where the odds are better. Either because thermals are more reliable over a larger terrain (eg Namibia, Nevada), or because one can start out very early in wave and then continue in thermals. Klaus Ohlmann pioneered such flights from Southern France and Baptiste Innocent and a few others continue to build on his achievements.
Congrats. I only made a 400 km triangle but it was with an unballasted club class glider and with north west Europe weather .
Congrats! That’s a very nice achievement!
@@ChessInTheAir Thanks for what you're doing to explain modern gliding to people who don't know about gliding , a very little known sport .
What a flight, well done sir!
Congrats to this great flight ! I would get nuts with this vario setup. Maybe time for a change ? I like the S10 (without Hawk !) in electronic mode and fits in your setip nicely.
Yes, it drove me nuts too. I replaced it with an S10 soon after :-)
I like the Hawk too, btw. Real time wind made a huge difference, especially when cruising along the convergence and when approaching ridges.
@@ChessInTheAir I also have the Hawk and the wind is really better now, but the Hawk-Vario is not good so I still use the Non-Hawk Vario as Audio signal. Summarized, I think its to expensive regarding how buggy it is.
@@LSVFlachkurbler I also like that it helps me differentiate horizontal gusts from actual lift. However, I found it substantially overstates climb rates, especially in cruise. I mentally cut in half before deciding to turn. One thing that helped me was that a friend spend many days tinkering with the settings and I ended up just copying his although I can’t say that I fully understood all of it.
@@ChessInTheAir yes, it overrates them because it displays air mass minus polar. And it constantly underestimates your sink. One more thing about your flying. I am convinced, that the exploratory turns you fly should be avoided. Either, you get immediatly a nice push when banking into the thermal, then you can continue, or you don't, then you should immediatly straighten out or sometimes even change direction. Continueing into a weakening vario response should never be done.
Incredible!
wow................. I can't imagine sitting that long!
Another excellent video!!!
Congratulations on an amazing achievement and thanks for uploading this incredible video!
Nevada every summer.
Great video!
Congratulations Clemens! Such a nice achievement. Wich wing loading did you Fly? Greetings from Brazil.
Thank you! Just below max gross, so around 590 kg / 1300 lbs
epic!
I knew IL, and I still think about his accident a lot. At one point, we were both members of Piedmont Soaring in NC. Did you guys get to talk about this amazing flight after it happened? Congrats! No doubt his accident had an effect on you. On later flights, have you had to implement any of your new contingency plans such as 3k AGL arrival to the home airport due to bad weather, or 1000AGL on final? I'm curious if you feel like any of the things listed on your website should have been applied to this flight?
CG, BT FL
How does the task in your oudie know what your finish alt has to be? You would only know this after you started the task. Can you put the finish alt into the task while you are “on task”? Are you using the new oudie N? What a fantastic flight. Congratulations. This video was amazingly educational. Thank you so much for taking the time to put this all together, and sharing it with us.
Thanks! Glad you like it! Since the Oudie knows the start altitude (the actual altitude when crossing the start line) it can calculate the finish altitude by subtracting 1000m. I’ve been using an Oudie IGC and it seems to do this right. Im always a bit careful though and have also tried to do the math in my head to not come back too low. Have not had an issue with this. Hope this helps.
Very nice video. I think you're in a Ventus Turbo, is the turbo any use at the heights you fly at? In the UK we rarely fly above 5000ft above sea level and certainly wouldn't need to 'save' the flight at that sort of height, let alone at the heights you're flying at!
Good question. The turbo has its limitations but it’s still good to have. Boulder is at 5300 MSL. Along the Front Range (north and south of Boulder) the turbo is good enough to get me back home although it obviously won’t generate strong climb rates at these altitudes (especially when it’s hot). West of the Continental Divide it may help to get me back into lift if necessary. But it would not climb enough on its own to get me over the Continental Divide if there was no lift left at the end of the day (minimum of 11,000 ft necessary to cross). It might help me get me to another airport though, depending on the specific area I’m flying at.
@@ChessInTheAirhmmm..? I thought You where in a pure glider, that would be a real Valiant performance but very nice flight indeed 👍🏻
17,000 feet , here we have 6,000 on a very good day.
Sure, but for much of the task area 6000 ft would put me 4000 ft below the surface ;-)
Congratulations, amazing video, I absolutely loved it. One question: where did you get the accesory to fit the high performance Flarm antenna vertically? (it seems to stick beautifully to the top of the instrument panel)
There are two Flarm antennas on the panel. The one at the front is simply screwed to the panel. The one further back simply is held up by a rubber ring that is a tiny bit smaller than the tip of the antenna. That ring had been installed by a former owner and was just there to protect a cable fed through a hole in the glare shield. It can probably bought at a supply store for electrical hardware but I don’t know. It works. Hope this helps.
Thanks a lot and congratulations once again.
is your vario setup properly? it seems to be all over the place
Good observation. It was set up too fast and could no longer be changed.I have since replaced it.
How much water did you carry, what was wing load?
I believe gross weight was around 590 kg - just below gross max of 600
as a glider pilot for soma 50 years i enjoyed the 1000k flight. the pilot rip was very careful he could have taken much more chances in my opinion on speed but did not so top class pilot sorry to hear of his death i see he had a ventus 2xct for record does it have a turbo. ie not shark as accident glider
Thanks for your comments! Just to clarify, yes, the pilot who died in the microburst accident five days later flew a Shark. My Ventus 2cxT (from which I recorded the video) and I are thankfully still in great shape :-). I did not fly at all on the day the accident happened, but I can attest that the pilot who lost his life was a very competent, experienced, and conservative pilot. The accident would have been very difficult to avoid for anyone. It is worthwhile studying it: I have drastically changed my landing habits as a result. Whenever there is any virga in the area and thus a chance of microbursts, I now fly much higher patten entries (2000 ft AGL or even higher) and with much more airspeed in the pattern (90 kt) - well above anything that is recommended in the manual or other instruction materials. Normal rules of thumb for staying safe (e.g. 1000 ft AGL at pattern entry and “yellow triangle plus 1/2 wind and gusts” are completely inadequate to counter the forces that a microburst can unleash. A link to my accident analysis is in the video description. Anyone flying in an environment with the possibility of microbursts (e.g. Namibia or much of the western U.S.) should check it out.
What kind of glider are You Flying? A pure one?
Congratulations Clemens on a great flight and nice video. Thought I heard Shmulik's voice on the radio? Brought a tear... Seriously, your vario and audio are horrible! One can get used to almost anything but that's really not OK...
Thanks Dave! Could not agree more about the vario. You'll be pleased to know that I replaced it with an S10. Much better! And yes, you heard Shmulik - 5 days before his death. Very sad and tragic. I referenced it in the video description.
Great soaring flight. Arrival at Boulder greeted with mobs of cheering glider pilots, typical. Variometer does suck, by the way.
Thanks. Agree on the vario and replaced it soon thereafter with an S10 - much better :-)