Episode 162- Clemens Ceipek and Flying Gliders, Seeking Understanding, and playing Chess in the Air

Clemens Ciepek is an Austrian Sailplane pilot who lives in Boulder, Colorado. He’s the president of one of the premiere gliding clubs in the world and runs a website dedicated to spreading knowledge and improving pilot ability called “Chess in the Air” that is filled with fantastic in-depth articles that cover the full gamut of flying. Why do some pilots improve very slowly and others get good really fast? Clemens says it’s in the approach. We cover the value of using the Condor flying simulator, studying theory, understanding forecasting as well as many of the topics Clemens tackles on his website: assessing risk, complacency, using the correct bank angle, thermal entry, identifying triggers and convergence, the most common mistakes that end badly, and a ton more.

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Episode 143- Matt Scutter and SkySight Soaring 101

Matt Scutter is an Australian competition sailplane pilot and software engineer who leads a team that runs the popular global soaring forecast platform Skysight. Unlike other platforms that use existing weather models to produce interactive forecasts for free flight enthusiasts like Meteoparapente and XCSkies, SkySight uses their own supercomputing systems to gather a wide range of weather data to create their own daily models. Initially designed for sailplane forecasting SkySight is now a go-to platform for paragliding and hang gliding forecasting as well.

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