At long last, my Condor Version 1.1.5 Orientation document is now available for review/download.
This document does not represent all there is to know about Condor. Instead it comprises most of what I have learned about the software over 10 years of leveraging its features and capabilities to improve glider flight training.
As Murphy would have predicted, the long-awaited release of Condor Version 2.X is rumored to be imminent. I may need to start all over again. I can only hope not.
Published in association with the Condor Version 1.1.5 Orientation is set of resources composing a tutorial entitled Wingtip-based Turning.
The purpose of this tutorial is to help you learn to maintain level flight, and control the bank angle (rate of turn) of the glider, using the relative position of the glider’s wing tip to the horizon.
This skill has several applications in Condor, both of which can also be applied to aircraft-based flight.
I thought this one might be quick and easy. I was wrong. I am beginning to appreciate how much work this self-study guide development project is going to be. I hope to live long enough to see it completed.
Descent_Control is the first lesson to incorporate the functionality of Condor’s Flight School. Unlike Condor’s Free Flight mode, in which every flight must begin on, or directly above, the approach end of the active runway, Flight School allows a training scenario to begin at any 3-D point in the scenery.
In the lesson’s practice exercise, the glider is initially positioned 2.5 miles from airport, on the extended runway center-line, aligned with the runway heading, and 1800 feet AGL (an 8.5/1 glide ratio). From that position, the pilot is able to repeatedly practice making controlled descents, at various airspeeds, to any selected point on the runway.
All the Replay files are new.
The new study guide is available from the Descent Control lesson page.
For the money, this really is an amazing piece of software.
This one was a “LOT” of work. I have been at it for over two months, but it is finally finished.
In addition to the new study guide, the republished lesson includes three new Replay files and a new Flight Plan.
The lesson content has also been expanded to include a section on “Muscle Memory” training for the turn-related control inputs, and a section on “Turns to Headings”; Task B in Area of Operation VII – Performance Maneuvers, Private Pilot Glider Practical Test Standard.
The new study guide is available from the Turning Flight lesson page.
Recently, after completing an online lesson with my cyber student in Germany, I was recording our session in my training log when I got the urge to tally up
The thought of doing another 789 online sessions has motivated me to begin production of self-study guides for each of the 33 lessons in my syllabus.
These study guides will enable glider rating candidates to largely teach themselves to fly; at their own pace and on their own schedule. The guides can also be used, by glider flight instructors or glider flight training mentors, as fully-developed, simulation-based, lesson plans .
The new study guides are available from the Airspeed_Control and Pitch_Trim lesson pages.
I subscribe to AOPA’s electronic newsletter. One of today’s Top Stories was Simulation’s Untapped Potential. I can relate.
As yet another indication of his dedication to excellence, CFIG Scott Manley has retained the services of Megan Strickland to design, develop, and consult on his new website.
Is Ms. Strickland an artistic geek or a geeky artist? You decide.