Description
Burkhard Martens, author of the best-selling book Thermal Flying, has published a new book.
It’s called Cross Country Flying and is aimed squarely at pilots who want to learn how to fly cross country, as well as those cross country pilots who want to fly further, faster and for longer.
It’s up to date, with advice on how to use technology to maximize your flights, what tactics to use and how to score well in online competitions.
Cross-Country Flying also has special chapters on:
- Cross country for novices
- Weather, thermalling and understanding best glide
- Need to know essentials: best time to launch, inversions, convergence, crossing valleys, dolphin-flying, tactics, valley winds and more
- How to fly the mountains
- In-depth interviews with experts, including Chrigel Maurer, Jocky Sanderson, Ewa Wisnierska and more
- Flatland flying
The book also includes detailed information on how to fly some of the best XC sites in the Alps, including:
- Fiesch and the Wallis Valley
- Fanas in Switzerland
- Pinzgau in Austria
- Speikboden in Italy
- Greifenburg in Austria
- Annecy in France
Plus there are photo site guides to some of the world’s best sites:
- Quixada, Brazil
- Manilla, Australia
- Iquique, Chile
- De Aar, South Africa
- Rift Valley, Kenya
- Piedrahita, Spain
Thermal flying, together with cross-country flying became, and remains to date my greatest passion. In 1992 I ranked 14th in the German cross-country championships with 103 points. In 1993 I came 4th with 342 points, and improved through to 2004 to win the sport class, and 2007 to win the open class in the championships .
My ambition is to spend almost every spare minute I had in the air. I flew with the German League, with the World Cup and various other championships too. Over the last 10 years I have focused on the German cross-country championships, and this is still the aspect of the sport which fascinates me most. I’m not so keen on acro-flying or racing, but I’ve been back in the German league for the past few years, and managed to win the Bavarian Masters twice.
I hope to help you make the most of all the thermal pilots to cross-country flying with this book. This book complements my “Thermal Flying” book, and has a chapter especially for beginners, where I have collected all the most important information for getting started.
For more experienced pilots, I have included a lot of information on route planningand choosing the right site . The book follows on a lot of ideas presented in my “Thermal Flying” book, and intensifies the topics introduced there.
In the descriptions I use, I almost always address pilgrims pilots.
My special thanks go to all the world class pilots who have added their personal tips and tricks to my text – these are particularly valuable!
Also included is an interview with Sepp Gschwendtner on flatland flying. Interesting for all who’d like to try the flats, but do not know where to start. The book concludes with a selection of alpine sites and how to get to cross-country from them.
I wish you lots of wonderful and accident-free cross-country flights!
