Why do you 180?

All those things used to play the dominate role in motivating me one way or
the other.

Years of facing 'land outs' while glider racing have made this kind of
decision making all too familiar - e.g. "just one more turn in this dead
thermal then I'll try that that little mound over there - damn, if I land in
this field, I'll be the only pilot not to make it back today" In fact, I
often ended up in a field or the wrong airport. Sometimes I pushed it too
hard and scared the s**t out of myself. Other times I made a sensible
decision and landed in some god forsaken field or some sort. Despite the
fact that up to 50 other competitors would review my 'failures' daily and
even make note of it at breakfast the next morning, I slowly figured out
that there was no difference between pushing it and failing, and being safe
before failing.

The bad part was scaring myself. The even worse part was scaring my
spouse/crew.

So I'd say my motivation now is simply not to scare the bezeesus out of
either myself or my mate.

I did several 180s this past Friday bouncing up against some storms in
Pennsylvania/NY. I had decided before performing the first one that I was
more than willing to land, refuel, and fly 3 hours back home or getting a
room. No problem bouncing up against them, just no penetration. Finally
got thru 30 miles off course. (Damn, I miss CBAV)

About a month ago, We did a precautionary landing at a airport that I knew
was 'dead'. No fuel, no people, no help. I was 30 miles from home, 20
miles from RDU. Was given vectors to RDU 3 or 4 times. Lightening and fast
growing cumulus caused me to reverse direction each time. We had fuel but
since the cells had so little movement and home base was under attack, we
parked it. Found the owner of the airport mowing. He drove us home. Nice
guy!

I know we could have made it into RDU. I know there was a good chance of
scaring the crap out of both of us on the way. No problem with the decision
to avoid all that.

Fear of death works for me. But it's hard keeping the ego at bay.

"BillC85" wrote in message
Why do you 180 instead of pressing on? What are your motivations? What
goes
through your head?