On Jan 5, 10:08*am, Papa3 wrote:

I've also taken to the "whifferdill" approach when cruising - ie. if I
sense some lift I'll slow up and "explore" to see if I hit a good
pulse, but I'm really trying to avoid the 360 turn unless it really
feels solid. * *I've flown with CG a few times and watched how much of
the air he explores without doing a full turn - it's pretty amazing.

A lot of pilots do this - it serves two useful purposes: 1) it keeps
you in rising air longer without ever giving ground by doing a 360,
and 2) It allows you to search for the strong core.

I did some calculations on course deviations versus expected climb
rates - it's junior high school trigonometry. Conclusion: If you have
any good reason to believe that the lift will be stronger - course
deviations of 45 degrees and several miles make perfect sense.

The guys who are really fast on course are the ones who only settle
for the strongest lift along the way. The key skills are 1) being able
to use all available cues to go to where the lift is likely to be best
- in a micro and macro sense - clouds, terrain features, wind
direction and velocity, macro weather patterns, other gliders, etc, 2)
knowing how low to go before lowering you expectations for lift - or
being able to anticipate a change and adjust accordingly.

9B