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We often fly on windy days. Once the wind gets over twenty knots you really need to adjust your circuit procedure for high winds.
I adjust my circuit speed by adding half the wind (gust) speed to my target circuit speed. So if I'm using sixty knot as my target circuit speed, and we have twenty gusting thirty on the ground, I add fifteen knots to my target. That gives a new circuit speed of seventy five knots.
If it's windy, it's often wavy. There may be turbulence or strong lift or sink in circuit. There may be a crosswind.
I like to fly my circuit high and close so I always have an easy glide to the runway. I want to stay high until I'm on finals. If I have excessive height I don't extend my circuit, I use the airbrakes to keep on profile. I might start the circuit 1,500ft above the runway instead of the 800 to 1,000 on a light wind day. I'll carry that extra 500ft most of the way around the circuit and airbrake it off late on base and with a steep final.
That steep final helps with descending through windsheer. The windsheer can cause rapid loss of height on finals, so having an aiming point well down the runway so any undershoot is onto runway is important.
The stronger the wind and the less stable the conditions, the closer to the middle of the airfield I move my aiming point. If it's really wild my aiming point is as far from the ends and edges of the airfield as possible.
On downwind you will cover ground quickly, so there may be a temptation to extend further downwind. This is a mistake. Stay close and use the brakes if you need to.
Keep your base leg close to the runway. I will often fly my base leg along the airfield boundry. If you're high, use the airbrakes.
Fly a steep final with plenty of brake. Carry the brake into the flare. If your brakes aren't more than half open, ease them open. Leave the brakes out to kill the float. If you're not going to make your aiming point, but you're on the runway, just land where you are. Don't float. Don't close the brakes.
Keep the glider straight and the wings level. Keep the brakes open. Stop immediately. Don't taxi off.
If there is a extreme crosswind, land on an angle across the runway. Landing on grass, the crab and kick method of crosswind landing works well, especially if you carry lots of airbrake to kill the float in the flare.
In a southerly crosswind at Omarama, approaching at an angle over the rough (winch track area) to an aiming point on the edge of the runway keeps your undershoot over landable terrain.
In a northerly crosswind at Omarama, flying the finals along the southern edge of the runway and angling across close to the flare keeps you over landable runway.
It is important that if you get dumped you have runway underneath you, not trees and fences.
Briefing prepared by Phil Plane.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License