S-turns on final

I think the main point against S turns is that they will not actually lose that much altitude

Agreed. I guess originally they were used to control descent but for me they're a way of "loitering" at the approach end. I was on a high downwind at New Castle landing to the north a few years ago when a guy called in much lower and behind me to ask if I could either turn in immediately or let him go first. I responded: "__, you go first, JB will hold." I'd always wanted to say that.

I didn't want to circle or extend the downwind leg much farther (IIRC, this was NC on a rough ridge day, one reason I was pretty high) so I turned onto a high base and just continued beyond the normal base-to-final point. Turned slightly more than 180 degrees and made a couple of figure eights with short straight segments, "parked" out there still on high base. I could see the glider behind me (plus any more traffic) as well as the gliderport at all times. When I saw him touch down, I turned onto a (still) high final, announced my intention, and made my normal final approach.

Yeah, there were alternatives. But because S turns were part of the curriculum when I learned how to fly back in the dark ages and because I've used them a few times to check out fields just ahead where I didn't have enough altitude to fly to them and still do a full pattern, I thought it was safe. When the pilot asked me later how I'd managed the "hold", I realized S turns weren't universally known.

I've tried the full-brakes-and-dive-for-the-earth technique, though not to VNE. Seems to work but everything happens pretty fast so I'll stay with the slips-and-dive-brakes-in-a-high-pattern approach I've been using for decades in Std. Class gliders. Do I NEED slips? Probably not, and I usually end up holding the slip and using partial dive brakes to get the desired angle. But I like having that skill just in case.

Of course, no one should be experimenting with slips or S turns down low the first time. I slipped my ASW 24 at altitude when I got it both to verify there weren't any odd issues as well as whether the sink rate was worth doing it (it was).

Just to stir the pot up, I might offer that not being skilled in slips because you shouldn't ever need them if you fly a correct pattern is sort of like saying you shouldn't need to know how to recover from a spin because if you fly correctly, you'll never enter one. But that analogy might be stretching things....

Since it was mentioned, I can offer that I have slipped down a long final approach with partial water and not noticed a bit of difference in the way the glider handled. It was unintentional. I didn't realize I'd forgotten to dump ballast (after a very busy, crowded finish) until the glider rolled and rolled and rolled. I wouldn't try it again, though.

I did unwittingly land my LS-3 one time with water in one wing but not the other (failed valve actuator) and didn't notice anything amiss until the last few knots when the wing went down hard.

Chip Bearden