On Fri, 17 Apr 2020 11:15:34 -0700, Nick Kennedy wrote:

For most licensed pilots I think the release height is very important.
If you go to all the trouble to get ready to go soaring, you want to get
high enough to have a good chance to get away.
Nick T

On a reasonable day 1400 is enough and less good days typically just take
a bit longer to get going. Occasionally you get lucky too. A year or two
back I took a launch around lunchtime, which I abandoned at 1000 ft due
to a sudden overspeed. Thought it might be a thermal, so whipped the
wheel up, hung a 180 and came straight back down the middle of the
runway. Met it at 900ft - a very small tight thermal that immediately
showed 5-6 kts up. Got my Libelle nice and tight in it and noticed the
averager showing 13 kts as I went through 3500. Unfortunately I had to
leave at 4700 or so because we're under under the outer shelf of
Stanstead CTR and its base is 5500.

Dunno if you have the sort of odd conditions we sometimes get, but there
are times on a calm day when there's very little lift under 1800-2000, a
nasty trap if you'd towed to 2500 and didn't notice the dead lower
regions, but by starting from a winch launch to 1400 I'll certainly know
if its that sort of day.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org