There are many books on “how to fly gliders” and even some on flying cross country or racing, but few on how to soar. I want to engage those people who are passionately interested in the way sun, wind, terrain and the airmass combine to create all the varied patterns of air movement that we collectively call “lift”. Ridge, thermal, wave and convergence lift are all familiar to soaring pilots, but to look ahead at the sky and predict what will happen as you fly through it has always been a hard skill to acquire. Fear not, it isn’t a black art and no talent is required, except for a hunger to know what is going on. There is a solid, well understood body of knowledge and a set of well proven techniques that you can employ to play the great game of soaring successfully and safely, in all kinds of terrain, and in all types of lift.

This knowledge may exist already, but it isn’t widely disseminated. Yes, there are books, videos and magazine articles, and plenty of stuff on the internet. But is difficult to dig out the information in any coherent way that hangs together as a set of lessons, any scheme that makes it easy to learn and to make progress with your flying.

I believe that you should should learn and teach in a logical progression: from the easy to the difficult, and from the known to the unknown. Straightforward concepts and easily remembered, clear images help this rather abstract soaring stuff stick in the mind to be recalled when you need it. And when it comes to the science of how the air masses behave it’s important not to get too deeply involved in the maths and the physics. Leave that to the meteorologists: we only need to find the rising air.