On Thursday, September 26, 2019 at 8:59:23 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Wednesday, September 25, 2019 at 6:54:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
True- BUT- All the points made by good glider preparation are points that don't have to be given back.
From a guy who had two 999 point days this year. One of those made the difference between silver and bronze in nationals.
UH

Ironically, UH oversaw/assisted/provided the skilled work (vs. the grunt sanding work) on the glider that was the 1 point beneficiary of a complete refinish job.

No good deed goes unpunished.

JB

The reward was seeing one of my best friends in soaring get his best ever nationals finish.
UH

Thanks, Hank! It was one of the high points of my 50+ years in soaring. Just to reinforce your message, on the last day I made a 20 mile desperation final glide thru mostly sinking air and took a small penalty because I was slightly below the floor of the finish cylinder. IIRC, if I had been 3 feet lower, I would have lost that one point. Sure, there were all kinds of things I could have done earlier in the flight to more than make up for that. But I didn't. At the end of the flight, it came down to one tenth of one percent on that glide. That was my reward for all those hours spent with you pulling templates off my ASW 24 wing, removing the old gel coat carefully, and then building the profile back up the right way. Thanks, again, for your care and attention (and patience!) in that effort.

The above situation is rare. More typically, having that small extra percentage makes it possible to stay with the fleet moving down a fast leg on a blue day vs. slowly being dropped. It's probably not worth worrying about it unless you're flying competitively but it is for me. We're all different. Fortunately, soaring accommodates all of us.

Chip Bearden
JB