Thermal right, land left

some pilots are not "in the zone" with their gliders, and could not
determine a "lifted wing" if they had rely on it to find a thermal... unless
of course the thermal was strong enough to cause "an upset".. and then they
would still not recognize it as a thermal but a "wind gust" or even worse.."
an air pocket "..

I did not know air had pockets... LOL

BT

"Mark James Boyd" wrote in message
news:404e629e$1@darkstar...
I've always just flown the direction of the lifted wing for
the thermal. Sure, you could probably just do them all to
the right, and it wouldn't make much difference,
but if you ever competed, the extra falling out of the thermal
and the confusion when joining others would be
new.

I personally don't like thermalling right turns, because of
my power experience (left is best!), but when I look at my traces,
I'm about 50/50.

The reason many patterns are left, and right for helicopters, is
because this is where the pilot has the seat and the best vis in
side-by-side seating. In low vis circle-to-lands, it's nice to
be on the correct side of the cockpit...

In article ,
John wrote:
This past year, I have stuck to a policy of making all thermal turns
to the right only.

The airport I fly out of has left turns in the pattern. My idea is I
am developing the habit of turning slow to the right only. All left
turns are made at higher pattern speeds.

With the condition I am just recreationally flying locally (don't have
to be that efficient and can burn a turn to center each thermal by
going the "wrong way"), I found that thermaling for a while to the
left, then landing made the high speed left turns in the pattern feel
a bit "different". This was especially noticiable after not flying
for awhile. The result was babying the plane thru the turns instead
of "bank and yank".

Does this make sense for low-time pilots, or pilots who take time off
from flying occasionally? Seems like if you have not flown for
awhile, then thermal a few dozen slow left turns, you would naturally
tend to prefer slow left turns in the pattern. That is what you were
just praticing to do, after all.

Is there safety benefits to thermaling only to the right, and landing
only with left turns? Will a pilot develop habits or preference for
slow speed right turns and high speed left turns?

John


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Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA