Ted Wagner wrote:

Thanks Shawn, I'll take a look.

Btw, so say "It's *safe* to say everyone should land (blah blah blah)" is,
well, stating the obvious (kinda like saying "It's safe to stay on the
ground"). The pertinent question is whether it was *unsafe* for me to
continue the turn in the precise circumstances in which I found myself. I
remain open to the possibility that it was not, but in the same spirit,
being over tiger country out of reach of landable points is questionably
unsafe, yet I hear regularly of pilots doing this as a matter of routine,
especially in contests, and if I continue flying contests long enough (and I
hope to be doing them for many years), I will have to take that step many
times myself. I want to err on the side of safety, but at the same time, I
want to be reasonable and competitive.

Was it unsafe? No, not that time. Here you are! Definitely risky though.
Thermalling at low altitude isn't like thermalling aloft. Thermals are
less consolidated and much smaller in area. Wind shear due to ground
features alters the way thermals behave relative to higher up on the
same day, in the same wind. Perspective is different as well. The
ground appears to disappear under the lower wing near the ground (moving
front to back), whereas at altitude it appears from under the lower
wing. If you try to "fix" this picture automatically, you'll keep
finding yourself in a skidding turn every time you scan past the yaw string.
Do most pilots routinely fly over tiger country out of glide of anywhere
landable? I think people talk it up more than they do it. Plus, being
at 19,000 feet (by GPS) over Nevada desert with cloud streets as far as
the eye can see is a different judgment call than being 2000 feet over a
Louisiana swamp with a wisp of a cloud dome up ahead.
The way I'll keep looking at it, is how I was trained. Once I commit to
landing, I'll land. And yes, I can imagine exceptions, but they would
involve the landing option being very very bad anyway (e.g. trees).
Much better not to get into such a situation in the first place.
FWIW its very good you're asking these questions now, and not the next
time you're in lift on downwind.

Shawn