Tales Of The Bloody Triangle

We South westerners can do a 5 state flight. That would starting at
Dalhard, TX and flying north through Oklahoma into Kansas, turning left
and hitting Colorado, before turning south to New Mexico and then back
to Texas. Would that garner a few extra points?

They used to have organized safaris to Dalhart just for that purpose.

bDan
5J
/b

On 2/4/21 7:44 PM, Moshe Braner wrote:
On Thursday, February 4, 2021 at 8:44:57 PM UTC-5, MNLou wrote:
Should east coast triangles that use the ridge be discounted because they are easier to complete than triangles that use only thermals on all 3 sides?

Flame suit on

Lou

PS - Great flight Evan!

How about adding points for how many states you fly in during the same flight? We in the little Eastern states need SOME advantage :-) From where I (and Evan) fly, we fly in 3 states to do a 250 km O&R: https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3....l?dsId=7862704
Or a 300km triangle: https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3....l?dsId=7266702

On Friday, February 5, 2021 at 9:47:37 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
We South westerners can do a 5 state flight. That would starting at
Dalhard, TX and flying north through Oklahoma into Kansas, turning left
and hitting Colorado, before turning south to New Mexico and then back
to Texas. Would that garner a few extra points?

They used to have organized safaris to Dalhart just for that purpose.


Depending on where you start in Europe, you can easily cover several countries. Flights from the NW part of Germany covering The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Luxemburg are not uncommon. In the southern part of Germany, flights across Austria into Italy and back are possible.
There were even flights from Europe across the Mediterranean Sea to northern Africa.
Would crossing international borders or even inter-continental flights earn any bonus points?

Uli
'AS'

No... But they might get you a close up view of an F-16!

Dan
5J

On 2/5/21 8:26 PM, AS wrote:
Would crossing international borders or even inter-continental flights earn any bonus points?

On Saturday, February 6, 2021 at 10:41:40 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:


Dan
5J
On 2/5/21 8:26 PM, AS wrote:
Would crossing international borders or even inter-continental flights earn any bonus points?
No... But they might get you a close up view of an F-16!

A lot has changed since you were frozen .... ;-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et-s_GnUNBw

Uli
'AS'

I can add a tidbit about planning bloody long triangles...

I'm now using SkySight weather software. It has some very cool features that have been added. You are able to position turnpoints are arbitrary locations within SkySight and the software will predict your speed around the course as well as advise the optimum start time and thereby inferring from that, whether or not the course is even doable in the day's available weather window. When a day is in prospect, I'm testing triangles in different directions and different geometries to see which produces the best speed. Once I have a general plan then it comes down to fine tuning by massaging the positions of a remote start/finish and the three TPs to get an optimal result. Thereupon, the selected coordinates can be saved within SkySight to a turnpoint file and uploaded to the flight computer for declaration.

If there are several successive days that are in prospect, then I do this speed simulation for each day and pick the best day to fly as I don't generally have the energy to fly long triangles attempt on successive days; I need to pick the best day to make an attempt.

As good as the software is, it's not perfect. No weather tool is able to get over-development and thunderstorms forecasted accurately as to where exactly the blowups will happen. So it's always a bit of a craps shot. It is necessary that the storm index / OD potential not be too high or you are almost certain to be blocked at some point when flying a triangle to declared turnpoints. It is quite different than OLC flying where a storm in one direction just means you change course to fly in the best air. Without that option, declared triangles are surely the toughest to get done.

On Saturday, February 6, 2021 at 2:52:07 PM UTC-5, Steve Koerner wrote:
I can add a tidbit about planning bloody long triangles...

I'm now using SkySight weather software. It has some very cool features that have been added. You are able to position turnpoints are arbitrary locations within SkySight and the software will predict your speed around the course as well as advise the optimum start time and thereby inferring from that, whether or not the course is even doable in the day's available weather window. When a day is in prospect, I'm testing triangles in different directions and different geometries to see which produces the best speed. Once I have a general plan then it comes down to fine tuning by massaging the positions of a remote start/finish and the three TPs to get an optimal result. Thereupon, the selected coordinates can be saved within SkySight to a turnpoint file and uploaded to the flight computer for declaration.

If there are several successive days that are in prospect, then I do this speed simulation for each day and pick the best day to fly as I don't generally have the energy to fly long triangles attempt on successive days; I need to pick the best day to make an attempt.

As good as the software is, it's not perfect. No weather tool is able to get over-development and thunderstorms forecasted accurately as to where exactly the blowups will happen. So it's always a bit of a craps shot. It is necessary that the storm index / OD potential not be too high or you are almost certain to be blocked at some point when flying a triangle to declared turnpoints. It is quite different than OLC flying where a storm in one direction just means you change course to fly in the best air. Without that option, declared triangles are surely the toughest to get done.

Steve, you are absolutely correct about the Bloody Triangle. I sometimes see good flights with little or miniscule triangle values. I have always flown mostly triangles and mostly try to stretch the legs out for a respectable distance. Here in Florida we are somewhat handicapped by lower bases and large bodies of water. Triangles here are very different and I consider more challenging than many other soaring areas. I looked back at one of you triangular flights from past and smiled as I saw three pretty much equal legs, nice job. Bob

Another thing to add to OLC and triangles is that it keeps track of declared triangle fight for the BHC (Barron Hilton Cup). So yet another place to compete on OLC.

Most days I'll declare an ambitious triangle and set it up in the flight computer as an area task with large circles. That way, the computer is keeping track of my progress and if the weather is not as good as expected, I just cut the corners. If it's better than expected, I fly deep into one or both turn areas to get more OLC points, but make sure I get in the OZ for the declared task in order to get the BHC score.

5Z