Why are you coming in at 40kts? Is it perhaps because you made a bad
decision earlier in the flight and didn't stop for a climb, or were
running to hot and realized it too late? If you know you will be
uncomfortable don't fly to the minimums........


Luke

Once again, real slow.

The problem with finishes does not occur when things work out as planned, and we bash home at 100 knots. Well, yes, actually, there were plenty of brain fade after finish problems, but that wasn't the real motivation for moving things up.

And yes, every sane pilot tanks up and doesn't set out across the woods separating himself from home until he has a decent energy reserve. Nobody plans to arrive at 500 feet and 40 knots.

But, welcome to soaring. Sometimes things don't work out as planned. 20 miles out, you had Mc 3 and 500 feet. But now it's 10 miles out, you found a lot of sink, and you're down to Mc 0 and 100 feet, about 2000' AGL. It looks like a few fields ahead. Keep going? Well, there are all those great stories of hero pilots who pulled up over the fence and made it.

And now, despite all your great planning, you're 5 miles out, Mc 0 + 100 feet. 750 feet AGL. You're doing great in the contest so far. Last field below. Trees ahead. Hero stories ringing in your ears. You know they'd do it -- they've said so a hundred times. This is how contests are won, no? Are you really going to stop, with 750 feet still remaining, while the computer says you can make it?

Maybe yes. I have known a lot of pilots who made the decision to throw away a nationals in this circumstance and land. I have. I know a lot of pilots who went for it, and made it, and were heroes. I know a few pilots who went for it and did not make it.

In any case, if you do it, you are going to fly at best glide -- 53 knots, and then end up stretching the glide over the cylinder by gently slowing down to 40 knots.

Recognize that this is a very tough decision. If you just say "I won't be tempted" you are in deep, deep denial, totally fooling yourself and ripe to make the wrong decision. Think very very hard about this little coffin corner before you get there, have a set of quantitative guidelines ready. Pilots who get this right do it by knowing they will be tempted and guarding against that.

To your point, it does not matter how good your earlier decisions are, how conservatively you start your final glide. This situation will come to you sooner or later. It came to me once after leaving the last thermal 1500 feet over Mc 3. I landed one mile out, in the last good field, with everyone watching. I had 300 feet at that last field, but it was nothing but houses and powerlines to the airport.

Now, once we're honest with ourselves and realize how tough this decision is, how tempting it will be to continue, and how much going for it is part of the racing tradition and important toolkit of contest-winning pilots who aim to win nationals and worlds... How about we move the whole affair up 500 feet?

John Cochrane