On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 9:45:06 AM UTC-5, Michael Opitz wrote:

I think that's a pretty good summary of the issue. You can add
Ray Gimmey to the above list. He won the 1988 STD Nats in
Minden (actually, Klaus Holighaus won, but he was a guest) due
to a very low save on a difficult day. Ray told me that he had
already rolled out on final to land on a dirt road when he hit an
8 Kt thermal and wrapped into it to get home. Ray told me that
he was down around ~100' IIRC.

Yes, Evan, there were no recorders back then, so it is a story, but
I have known Ray to be a pretty "straight shooter" so I have no
reason to doubt his version of this. He told me right after we
landed at Minden.

Here is another story. My father told me how they did it in German
glider contests before WWII. If they got low, they picked a good
plowed field to land in which might also be a thermal generator.
Then, they would dive down and make a high speed low pass over
the field in order to try and break loose/trigger a building thermal
bubble. After the low pass, they would pull up (similar to one of
our high speed flying finishes) and make a circle or two. If the
maneuver was successful, the bubble would have been broken
loose and they would climb away. If not successful, they would
land, as they had already given the field a "close" inspection. I
have not yet tried this method myself, and I don't know if I ever
will, but it is/was a skill set that pilots have used in the past, so
it is probably relevant to this discussion because if one dives
down from above 300', one would violate the proposed "hard
deck" even if one were to zoom back up above it....

RO

Awesome stories! Thanks Mike.

Those are obviously very different scenarios from the ones John has given as examples. Both could easily lead to fatal results even in skilled hands with just a smidge of bad luck. Was Ray's save a reasonable thing to do in the circumstances (it's easiest just to say "NO!")? What I know for sure is that your odds absolutely suck if you fly into sink at 100 agl in a 45 degree bank and 50 kts.

I can see this issue both ways... which is why I'm asking for data. Absent tangible evidence of people doing really dangerous stuff motivated by point

When I see spaghetti traces like the ones in John's report, I don't think "this guy's trying to stay in the contest", I think "this guy is desperately afraid to land for some reason", e.g. bad field, inexperience, borrowed or shared glider, whatever. Helpful to ask the pilot (thanks WH).

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8