Soaring Fanatic

Soaring is like sailing, only in the air instead of on the water.

The analogue to being becalmed is a gradual descent. Being in lift is better; lift is simply air rising faster than the sailplane must descend in order to maintain airspeed. Soaring's third dimension makes things interesting because nature provides an aggressive state relative to being becalmed known as sink - any air that is going down, particularly if it is descending rapidly, perhaps causing one to land in an unintended location. Fortunately, landouts don't usually damage the airplane because sailplanes have such a slow landing speed.

 (Use caution for trees and rocks, however.) -- JimDensmore

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