On Mar 7, 12:08*pm, Mike the Strike wrote:
In addition to considering the probability of a landout, you have to take into consideration the consequences of one. *If your final glide is over a landscape of neatly mowed large fields, the consequences of a landout are trivial and you can push closer to the theoretical limits. *As Cliff says, many western sites have very poor options and carrying extra height, perhaps even more than mathematically indicated, might be wise.

I once got very very low over Zion National Park in Utah and have carried higher safety margins ever since!

Mike

Exactly. In the paper analysis, you adjust the "probability of not
making it" parameter according to the consequences of a landout. The
profile to follow over mowed fields, where the costs are inconvenience
or contest points, is very different than the profile to follow over
Zion. They're both square roots but the Zion profile is much higher up
-- in the range of MacCready settings you may never have used before.

That's one of the big points. We get used to Mc 3 or so glides and
that they almost always work out. Over Zion, that experience is not
good enough. To an earlier comment that experience trumps analysis,
well, you don't want to be the guy that learns about how often Mc 1
glides work out by experience!

John