"Bill Daniels" wrote...
5 meter/second = 9.7 knots. I was setting M in meters per second. The
speed command just says push or pull. I think my computer is pretty well
set up. I think we agree on this: Most pilots fly too fast.

I was aware that you were talking in m/sec. Here's what you said:

I still don't think you guys get it. Yesterday, while flying over the Rocky
Mountains in my Nimbus 2C I was seeing 5 M/S on the averager, yet if I set
the M number to 5, the speed command would ask for 200+ MPH. Given the
level of turbulence associated with 5 M/S lift and the fact that I was flying
dry,
I stayed in the green arc.

If I plug MC 10 knots into my speed to fly spreadsheet for my LAK-17A 18M dry
(which is likely to have a higher STF than your IIC for the same MC setting), I
get 148 mph (130 knots) for 0 airmass movement. In order to get an STF of 200
mph, I would need to be in 10 knots of sink.

Your computer may be well set up, but it appears to be giving bogus STF...

The point is that in mountain flying, total reliance on McCready speeds is
misleading and possibly dangerous if it induces a pilot to fly too fast.
Certainly, you don't want to base your strategic or possibly even your
tactical decisions on the McCready speed to fly. Be aware of it and factor
it in, but don't be a slave to it.

In a wide area of homogeneous airmass characteristics where thermals are
uniform in strength, diameter and spacing, the McCready speed to fly is a
major determinator of flying technique.

Flying in high mountain country is just the opposite. You had better be
ready for a complete weather change every few minutes. Thermic conditions
will cycle very fast and you may see blue sky, towering cumulus,
overdevelopment and back to blue in a single interthermal glide.

I fly in high mountain country, just like you. I also spend a lot of time
cruising. For those times when I have a decent idea of what the next climb
rate is going to be, I'd want a computer which isn't telling me to fly 50+ MPH
faster than I should be...

Marc