On Thursday, June 13, 2019 at 2:41:28 AM UTC-7, Gary Wayland wrote:
Bank angle; meaning, I'm not going to pull a 45/60-degree bank at two hundred plus feet trying to make a low save. If the thermal is that strong that I could pull 45 degrees in a normal condition, then I should be able to flatten out the glider and 'float' my way back out of the hole I just got in.. The lower I go, the less bank angle I give myself to save from land out. I start thinking that way under 500'

That turns out to be completely wrong. Often, thermals down low are very narrow and you need to really core them with minimum radius. Faster and steeper gives smaller radius, better control, harder to stall, less likely to depart if you do stall, and faster and easier recovery.

All of that applies even more so if you want to add some safety speed "for Mom".

Here are numbers for a glider with 40 knot stall, doing the tightest turn theoretically possible (on the edge of stall):

Speed kts Radius m Bank
========= ======== ====
41.0 141.1 17.9
42.0 102.7 24.9
43.0 86.3 30.1
44.0 76.8 34.3
45.0 70.6 37.8
46.0 66.1 40.9
47.0 62.7 43.6
48.0 60.1 46.0
49.0 58.0 48.2
50.0 56.3 50.2
51.0 54.9 52.0
52.0 53.7 53.7
53.0 52.6 55.3
54.0 51.7 56.7
55.0 51.0 58.1
56.0 50.3 59.3
57.0 49.7 60.5

But that's not very safe. Let's add 5 knots for Mom, keeping the bank angle and G appropriate to the speed 5 knots slower:

Speed kts Radius m Bank
========= ======== ====
46.0 177.6 17.9
47.0 128.7 24.9
48.0 107.6 30.1
49.0 95.3 34.3
50.0 87.1 37.8
51.0 81.3 40.9
52.0 76.8 43.6
53.0 73.3 46.0
54.0 70.5 48.2
55.0 68.1 50.2
56.0 66.2 52.0
57.0 64.5 53.7
58.0 63.0 55.3
59.0 61.8 56.7
60.0 60.7 58.1
61.0 59.7 59.3
62.0 58.8 60.5

Compared to pulling unsafely hard you're adding 36.5m turn radius with 18 degrees of bank, 21.3m with 30 degrees, and only 8.9m at 60 degrees of bank.

But more than that, using 60 degrees of bank is giving a 2 to 3 times smaller turn radius than using 18 to 30 degrees -- and with a better safety margin too.

Yes, you're going to have a higher sink rate. But if it puts you in the core instead of circling outside it then it's well worth it.