At 14:55 14 June 2008, Mike the Strike wrote:

There are some extremely nasty places to get stuck down low in Utah
(I've been in some of them) and a precautionary Mayday to alert others
doesn't seem unreasonable to me. It also seems standard to use Mayday
rather than Pan Pan.

I was sort of under the impression that the expected response
to a Mayday call is to start the wheels rolling immediately for
whatever rescue mission turns out to be appropriate. It
really seems like there should be some intermediate form
that acknowledges that while things could get messy, it
hasn't actually happened yet.

I know we're all tempted to beat up on the wussy motorglider pilots in
the belief that they deploy the engine as a crutch at the slightest
soaring difficulty, but in this case I think we should wait for the
full story. If you check OLC, they've been stacking up some
impressive flights in the past few days.

Well, the engine is, as they say, a real confidence builder.

Jim Beckman