Sure, Bob, one would normally exchange speed for a
little extra altitude, but nothing like the 2G climb
required after finishing at 50 feet. If anywhere near
the magic 500 foot mark, I pull the nose up slightly
and just let the speed bleed of as I fly the remaining
mile to the airport. Must be sure to get a couple of
hits from the GPS, inside the cylinder. The near-miss
at this years Seniors should be a wake-up call to all
of us. Watch those pull-ups. Don't do them if you don't
have to.
JJ

At 15:00 28 March 2005, Bob Greenblatt wrote:
On 3/27/05 7:34 PM, in article
.com,
' wrote:

Pull-up is not necessary at the finish cylinder, so
why do it?

OK, I've lurked long enough. I'll probably be sorry,
but....
Why not? Aren't we trying to puncture the edge of the
cylinder very near its
bottom at maximum speed? Now, an instant later, we
find ourselves 499' AGL
at redline less than a mile from the airport. Seems
to me we sort of have to
pull up even a teensie bit to get slowed down and sorted
out and into the
pattern.

Some math in prior posts points out that the length
of the arc of the
cylinder we are trying to reach (on an AST at least)
is even shorter than
the 1km long finish line. For me at least, all the
cylinder does in this
case is move the bottom of the high speed pass up 450'.
Maybe that's better
or safer, I'm not sure; it's certainly not obvious
to me.

Additionally, the rules state that the 4 mile radio
call for a finish is 4
miles from the finish point, the cylinder center. So
with a 2mi radius
finish cylinder, radio calls come about a minute before
the finish. With a
finish line, the 4 mile radio call gives 2 minutes
of warning. I'd kinda
like as much warning as possible about who's nearby.

--
Bob
bobgreenblattATmsnDOTcom --fix this before responding