On Jan 5, 11:01*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 11:31:38 -0800 (PST), Sandy Stevenson

wrote:
As someone who is just starting to fly cross country, this is one of
the best discussions I've read here in the last few years.
Thanks for your posts, guys.

Better stop reading now, Sandy.

Otherwise I guarantee that you'll be completely puzzled by the variety
of techniques and opinions you are going to read here over the next
week. vbg

Here's a method that is very simple yet makes champions. Invented by
Ingo Renner who became three time world gliding champion using it.

First, and most important, set the *correct* McCready setting.
A 3 kt thermal is usually only 2 kts if you count the time you need to
center it, therefore always use a lower McCready setting than the
average climb rate your variometer is showing you.

Between thermals fly a *constant speed* depending on the McCready
setting. Do not adjust speed to the current sink rate, only pull back
and climb into a thermal if it is really strong.
Keep the AoA constant - fly smooooooooth.

Set McCready to half your chosen value once you get below 50 percent
of the cloud base, and only fly with best glide speed if you really
desperately need a thermal in order to avoid an outlanding.

The same method is used by the pilots who have been dominating German
15m class for the last 6 years (... and by the guy writing this
posting). Works like a charm, and is very simple to use.

That sounds about right. The John Cochrane paper suggests a similar
technique. Since he's on the US international team now I guess it
works!

In RL flying I have a PDA that measures the actual climb rate from
when you
start turning to when you leave, so I know my achieved climbs to base
my MC setting.
I set MC on my s2f vario independently from what my PDA suggests
(since my vario
doesn't listen to the PDA anyway) based on how aggressive I feel about
getting to
the next thermal. That feeling is based on the suggested speed to
fly, altitude,
time of day, look of the clouds ahead, whatever. I'll fiddle with it
as I get lower,
down to around MC=1 (Reichmann notes that your glide range at MC=0 and
MC=1
is really very similar, and MC=1 gets you to that thermal more
quickly). For that matter
I almost always fly dry so there's not a lot of difference in speed to
fly at different
settings anyway. I try to find lines of clouds more or less in the
direction of where
I'm going so I can try a bunch before settling on the right thermal.

It was interesting looking at one of my fastest days during contest
flying. I was flying
Sports class and found some amazing thermals that day. If I'd been
able to carry the 1
when adding the task time to my start time I would have flown nearly
60mph on course
(I came in about 10 minutes early so only got 54mph). However, I saw
a certain
standard class plane a couple of times up close. Out of curiosity I
pulled his trace
later on and compared it to my own. Mine had several really good
thermals that day,
but almost ALL of his thermals were really good! That alone is a good
reason he's
on the national team and I'm just cannon fodder.

-- Matt