"T o d d P a t t i s t" wrote in message
...
"mike regish" wrote:
That's wrong, too. Flying at minimum sink will get you the longest time
in
the air-like you'd want if you had a tailwind and needed the distance.
Minimum sink is slower than best glide.

You only fly at min sink for better distance when the
tailwind is infinite. At any slower tailwind speed, you fly
somewhat faster than min sink, but not as fast as best
glide. Generally, if you turn downwind, you will be able to
glide quite far and will have more fields you can reach, so
getting the absolute maximum distance is less important than
picking a good field and setting up a good pattern.

I could think of other reasons to fly minimum sink
1. More time to get the engine restarted
2. If flying over tiger country .. you get to live longer :)
terry