On Tuesday, June 9, 2015 at 11:06:13 PM UTC-5, SoaringXCellence wrote:
I don't know of such a program, but you might want to rethink your approach. It doesn't take into account areas of sink or the effects of a headwind.

I suggest you read Reichmann (or maybe it was Cochrane) for his discussion on why 0 MacReady is never the right value unless the air is void of all motion.

Sink or headwind is exactly what I want to take into account, that's the whole point! Was I unclear on the original post?

If you are trying to race along at an optimal cross-county speed then there's room for all kinds of nuanced discussions around how the basic MacCready theory falls short but if you are just trying to make the flattest possible glide toward the next thermal, given the existing sink and headwind, I don't think there is much rocket science to it is there? Draw the tangent line tothe polar curve, starting at the appropriate point to take into account sink and headwind.

But sure I'd be interested to read anything for more illumination, can you give titles as well as authors?

Anyway, I wrote a program to do exactly this years ago (and it also spit out the corresponding values for non-zero MacCready settings) but I don't have access to it now... someday I will resurrect it but it might be many months before I can tackle that.

S