On Friday, February 12, 2016 at 2:46:48 PM UTC-5, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Was reading an article by Mike Borgelt that when flying through a thermal you will not circle in you should just fly the STF.

I have always slowed in such thermals, sometimes slowing to thermal speed while putting the thermal flaps. I do try to accelerate before I leave the lift. My thought being try to stay in the lift as long as possible while still moving forward, sometimes even s-turning to stay in large thermal but still moving down the course line.

Would appreciate any comments, critique, thoughts...

i was always told by a very talented and well ranked pilot to never slow down below 60kts unless you are going to circle. i try to live by that, and have actually found that while one pilot pulls to thermalling speed, and i gently ease back to 60, he gets maybe 50 feet on me after he pushes back over, but i put distance on him. and i've always found that it's harder to make up horizontal distance vs. 50 or 100 vertical feet on someone (this is east coast dudes). remember that a pull is draggy, and also when you pull up and push back over, that's a "curve" in your flight path. when you only gently slow down to 60, you are flying a short path through the sky. when thinking in the "shortest distance between two points" mentality, remember to think in 3 dimensions. that's is my technique. its simple and effective i think.