(Mark James Boyd) wrote in message news:412e8424$1@darkstar...


We had this discussion before. If the thermal is coming from a
stationary ground source, and the best performance is
zero sink in the thermal, doing it exactly as a ground
reference manuever (shallow upwind, steep tailwind) is correct.

Otherwise one is blown downwind of the thermal.

This was well discussed in threads about a year ago.

If one starts at 60 degree banks on the upwind, with
10+ knots of wind and zero sink, trying to core the thermal
on the downwind will be exciting...

Thermalling at any height is a thermal referenced maneuver. The
thermal is in the air, the maneuver is not ground referenced.

Visual inputs from changing ground speed must not be allowed to take
priority over airspeed control, and they will if you are not very
careful to keep airspeed in the scan.


Andy