On Friday, September 13, 2013 1:03:59 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
Years ago I learned that, for a 40ish to 1 ship, you could hold out two

fingers at arm's length such that the top of the fingers rests on the under

side of the horizon. Anything visible below the second finger is reachable

at your present altitude. Give it a try! I suppose 3 fingers would work

just fine for a 1-26.





"Morgan" wrote in message

...

About a month ago while flying a borrowed glider, my Streak batteries died

and I had no GPS to tell me if I could glide back to the home base. I was

mortified. Contemplated pulling the dive brakes and landing at the airport

I was over, because 30+ miles with no glide computer and a 3k AGL day must

be impossible. I am kidding. The reality is that when I have lost GPS,

like this flight, I just fly a bit more conservatively because long

distances are hard to judge, so I use closer points that are maybe 10-15:1

away to gauge progress.



As you have already discovered, you don't need a GPS or a Chart or a

wiz-wheel. You need a sensible head and to pay attention to your

surroundings and what the landmarks are doing as you fly towards them.



I can't eyeball a 40:1 glide and know I'm going to make it to that obscured

place on the horizon, but I can sure tell that the field 10:1 away is

sliding under the nose. I came sailplanes from hang gliders, where you

rarely even consider using a chart or relying on a glide computer for glide

calculation so concern with the glide computer started out very low for me.

I actually fly with two in my glider. An L-Nav and a Dell Streak. They are

set up differently and rarely agree perfectly on glide. That's useful since

the Streak is my pessimist and the L-Nav is my optimist



Definitely get yourself a GPS. If nothing else, being able to review your

logs in See You is an amazing tool for learning from your own decisions.

You'll also gain an appreciation for the performance or lack thereof of your

glider as you can see in real-time how you are doing towards a fixed point.