On a glider only site you would be in the very vicinity of the pattern. It
is obvious that if there are many gliders at this altitude, you need to
think about what you do.

On a site shared with power traffic, patterns are usually seperated, i.e.
gliders on left hand pattern, power on right hand pattern, and there are
restrictions as to thermalling on final approach.

Just for completeness, these 800-1200ft release altitudes relate to fields
which provide something like 3000ft ish cable length.

With my Calif on a 5000ft cable, I typically get 1800-2000ft release
altitude. I'm not convinced that a Plasma rope would get you much higher -
there is nothing like length of the cable to increase height, and recent
tests on a military airfield in France have shown that there is no
saturation to be seen at 6500ft of cable length: you get about 40% of the
cable length as release altitude with a single seater.

--
Bert Willing

ASW20 "TW"


"Todd Pattist" a écrit dans le message de
...
"Bert Willing"
wrote:

In Europe, 500-600ft is normally considered as ok to thermal up. Many
launch
sites will give you 800-1200ft as release height from the winch.

How far from the traffic pattern would you be located when
thermalling at 500' and do you have to share with any power
traffic?

Todd Pattist - "WH" Ventus C
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)