Dan Marotta wrote, On 11/1/2014 4:30 PM:
I don't see why it wouldn't work at Moriarty. There's no degradation in
performance other than that pesky true airspeed thing (prop and wings)
and we have 7,000' x 75' to do your acceleration plus plenty of wind to
help with IAS. I keep trying to convince Renny to do it but, so far,
he's demurred.

The contest scenario would have you landing away from Moriarty, later in
the afternoon when it's the hottest, likely at an airport that's not
nearly so long. So there you are, density altitude of 10,000'+ with
5000' of runway, maybe some cross wind, some sink, and how much climb do
you have?

Another consideration, as Renny points out, is all that energy used to
self-launch won't be available for getting home. The FES unit is a
powerful sustainer, but it's still a very limited self-launch
motorglider. For example, it's practical to self-launch in my ASH 26 E,
and still count on a 250 mile retrieve, just with the 4 gallon fuselage
tank.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl