Excellent point. Brian's article actually appeared in the February 2006
issue of Soaring. It describes a long ridge flight last fall. All
througout the description of his filght planning and execution he is
working backwards from a finish before sunset.

Papa3 wrote:
snip
There was a great article in Soaring maybe a year ago by Brian Collins
about a 1000K flight. One of the key elements of his flight planning
involved getting back on the ground before sunset. Clearly, he could
have gone on to rack up at least another 100K or 200K by ignoring the
FARs, but he chose to make the FARs a key part of his decision making.
So, to answer your question, "Yes, a pilot should give up soaring
early to be sure of getting home in time." Does that have to be
"an hour early"? No. If you fly it the same way you would typically
fly a MAT (i.e. leave a few close in turnpoints for the end of the
day), there's no reason to give up that much of the flyable day.

Erik Mann
LS8-18 P3