Mike the Strike wrote:

It would be a foolish pilot who set his computer/ring to MacCready 5
on a day with 5 knot thermals that topped out at 1,500 feet AGL, but
with cloudbases at 15,000 feet you could probably set it at 6 or
higher. Several pilots I know set their ring almost as a function of
height rather than thermal strength.


My understanding of the theory is that you will ALWAYS be worse off if
you set a MC higher than the thermal strength and therefore fly faster
than optimum. Flying slower however does have several advantages, as
others have described.

Stephen