L/D of Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer

In article ,
Marc Ramsey wrote:

Bruce Hoult wrote:
And yet they said yesterday that if he ran out of fuel he could glide
200 miles from 50,000 ft. Which is 24:1, assuming nautical miles.
Which makes one suspect that the 37:1 is with the engine idling, not
dead.

If someone was going to tow you out to sea in your Standard Cirrus,
would you determine how far you can glide back based on the
manufacturers advertised 37:1 glide ratio, or perhaps something a bit
more reasonable like, say, 24:1?

From 50,000 ft? If I was going for a world record and had a parachute,
people standing by to pick me up, and a wealthy backer? I would expect
that the probability of sink the whole way would be vanishingly low and
that working on 32:1 or 33:1 would be pretty safe but that there would
be a pretty good chance of using what atmospheric variation was
available to manage a good bit better than the glider's raw glide angle.

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Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------