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Old February 18th 12, 08:49 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Chris Nicholas[_2_]
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Posts: 197
Default New Butterfly Vario

Dan was about right. Using metres is more like right – the plots Dan
sent me showed way too many feet on the left hand scale. My
recollection is that cloudbase was a bit over 4000 feet and I climbed
to about 11000 feet that day.

By the way, to repeat part of what I sent Dan privately - I do not
claim to be a very good IMC pilot. I had a bit of instruction at
first, then a lot of self-learning in a Ka6E which is strong, draggy,
has speed-limiting brakes/spoilers, and is fairly forgiving when
things go wrong – which they often did when I was slowly acquiring the
skill, using only a glider Turn and Slip (stronger spring, less
sensitive than a Power T&S so it does not go onto the stop in a
thermalling turn). I also advise other people not to cloud fly. Modern
gliders are too slippery to self-teach safely, IMHO. I do it because I
like it and accept the risk (which I think is minimal having learned
the slow way).

I also agree with Jim's comments.

Chris N.