Team Flying with different performance gliders

[Dan[_17_]]

I noticed in Uvalde in the open class, pilots were team flying with gliders having different performance. You would think this is difficult to do.
How is it done ?
Dan

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On Saturday, October 6, 2012 6:52:40 PM UTC-4, Dan G wrote:
> I noticed in Uvalde in the open class, pilots were team flying with gliders having different performance. You would think this is difficult to do. How is it done ? Dan

"Team flying" can take many forms ranging from "simple" exchange of lift and tactical information to wing on wing virtual formation flying.
The former is not at all dependent upon glider performance and may well be information exchanges from pilots in another class.
The latter requires very close performance characteristics between the gliders to work without a lot of extra work for the pilots.
My experience from Club class is that more than about a 2% difference make effective team flying quite a bit more difficult. The pilot with the higher performance glider will be giving up a good bit of the performance advantage to make it work.
UH