Andy Durbin wrote:

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.

Well, we went over this last year. I don't know how to look
up old RAS threads. Perhaps someone else does.
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Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA