On Monday, August 27, 2012 10:53:21 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
Tom, easy said than done. We all agree that circling too close to the ground is not a good idea, but there is no always a clear indication when it is too close. I don't know why many of you insist that there is nothing to learn from this accident without knowing the most important fact: how low was he circling?? If we find out it was 800 feet, will you go and claim that it is dumb to circle below 1000 feet? This is why we need to know the details, so we can make more informed conclusions.



Ramy

Ramy,

I listened to one pilot explain how he is confiddent to thermal at an altitude of 100 ft: do you think that is high enough?

Minimum thermalling altitude would reasonably be high enough to recover (demonstrated) from a stall/spin plus (at least, triple that for lower time cross country pilots) a 200 ft safety margin. This is REALLY not that difficult to figure out.

Tom
2G