Dan,
How much you polish depends on several important things.

1) How old is the pilot?
If the pilot is old then you can just say you polished the wings and
he will not be able to tell the difference!

2) Is rain a possibility?
If you wax or polish a wing so that water beads on a laminar flow wing
the pilot will kill you....don't polish but wipe or sand it!

3) What nationality is the Pilot?
If the pilot is German you better start a couple days ahead of time
because perfection is the only acceptible job.
If the pilot is South West American, he will not recognise his own
glider if you polish it so don't.
If the pilot is Australian then you are probably mistaking your pilot
for someone else as Aussie pilots dont need crew.

4) Can you see the fiberglass weave on the wings?
If so then just mist the wing and dry if with a cloth and chase bugs
away from the glider as best you can.

5) What is for dinner?
If its a McDonalds burger then just clean the canopy.
If its a nice steak dinner with desert then polish for as long as it
would take to eat your dinner.

You will figure out what else is important after the first time
crewing ;-)

Ray



On Jul 9, 4:26 am, Dan G wrote:
I'm crewing this season, and no doubt my pilot will be expecting me
out at 7am with Mer in hand.

My question is (and I'm sure it's been debated before, I did search,
but want fresh input) how worthwhile is polishing?

I can understand keeping the fuselage as slippery as possible to
reduce skin drag, but I've heard that glider wings would still work as
well as possible if their surface was 40 grit sandpaper! Also take a
look at a golfball -- it's dimpled specifically in order to reduce
drag, again implying that a smooth surface may not be perfect.

On the other hand I realise that bugs, chips in the gelcoat etc. are
bad news as they locally seperate the boundary layer, so you don't
want those around.

Dan