Flight analysis

We had a beautiful day today, and only Matt was smart enough to go flying. I decided to analyze his flight.

Here it is (click to enlarge)

He flew from Post Mills to Moran and back. His outbound leg is the zigzag path northeast of his return leg.

His altitude is encoded in the color - blue is high and red is low. Of course, you can see his altitude more directly in the barogram, at right. He reached 5800 feet twice, at 1550 and again at 1640 EDT. The elevation of the terrrain is also indicated. With the analysis program (SeeYou), you can inspect each fix and relate each point on the barogram with the corresponding point on the map.

The program also gives you statistics. You can see from the statistics page on the left that he flew for 1:51:16 and was credited with 59.2 kilometers, even though his total path through the sky amounted to 99.8 km. (OLC, which gives you credit for zigzags, gave him 72 km). He used 16 thermals and spent 40% of his time circling. His average climb rate for the flight was 1.6 knots.

What can we learn from all this? Did he zigzag too much? Did he spend too much time circling? Could he have climbed faster? Was he lucky to get home? The answers to all these questions are subject to judgment, but if you study these statistics over the course of a season, you can draw conclusions about your flying style, compare your performance to others, and watch your flying improve. You can also earn points for the club on OLC. It's fun!