Thread: Hard Deck
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Old January 28th 18, 06:50 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
jfitch
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Default Hard Deck

On Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 7:38:49 AM UTC-8, John Cochrane wrote:
There you go again overcomplicating things ... Just because it's hard to define a SUA that rules out all the problematic high terrain out of Logan or Nehphi does not argue against a simple altitude floor at Hobbs, Uvalde, or all the east coast flatland sites. It does not argue against valley floor SUAs even at those complex sites. Again, we are not here to stop bad behavior, to control what pilots do, and so forth. We are just, where we can with a simple transparent means, removing the strong incentive for SOME dangerous flying. Not all. Not at all sites. Not at all parts of all sites.

There is a lot of speculation around here. I used to do the numbers for the SSA safety report. We had a seriously damaged glider or worse in about one of every two contests. Almost all the damage was off field landings gone wrong, and almost all the traces showed low altitude thermaling attempts before crash. The reports are still on the SSA webpage. (Before the cylinder, we used to have regular crashes at and around the finish too.) Smacking into terrain or midair collisions are present, but quite rare.

On the elevator. I was skeptical too. Then I tried it. It's pretty benign.. You float down the eastern shore of Tahoe with an easy bail out to minden or carson most of the way. The ridge lift is very predictable. If there are whitecaps on tahoe, there will be ridge lift. The wind has to go somewhere. If there are not whitecaps on tahoe, it's not going to work. Smooth ridge lift gives you enough for a very comfortable glide back in to Truckee.

I see how it can be overdone. I have seen some traces of pilots shooting through the gap from the west, coming around the corner very low and squeezing lift out of the elevator from low altitude. That's a little hardy for me, in part that the back through the gap escape is gone. So far I have only tried it from about ridge top height up.

John Cochrane


John, above the ridge at Tahoe is one thing. Well below it is another entirely. The ridge starts at 9200 MSL Snow Peak and slopes down a little as you go north. From 9200' - even with the top - by the numbers you can glide through 7200' Brockway pass (10 nm away) at 40:1 and still be 400' above the power lines though it's going to take balls to do it. Or go 3 miles back through 7200' Spooner. At 9200' you are getting some ridge lift but you are not down on the Elevator, it is down at 8000'. I have watched people fly through Spooner at 8000', 1200' below the top, hook a right and ridge soar up.. So far we've only had one pilot killed trying it. Again by the numbers, from 8000' you can take one pass and still just clear the cars on Spooner on your way out. That is an "everything needs to go exactly right" plan. If you maintain the 9200' on the ridge going north, the ridge is getting slightly lower and you are getting closer to home, there is the option to bail out east to Carson if you can make it through the sink.

My personal limit is 10,300 or so leaving the Elevator area at Marlette Lake. At 50:1 that gives me about 300 ft over Martis peak with no help, if that isn't working I can continue towards Brockway which is 1000' lower (but a little further, too). Not an ultra conservative strategy but reasonably safe. That's where I got the 10,300' steering turn from. When I used to fly 40:1, that was a bit of a nail biter sometimes and I wanted to be higher. If we want to make it 9200 ft, then OK. It's the people entering Tahoe at 8000 that I don't want to compete with. The problem with 9200 is that, if the elevator is working, you can ridge soar it up to 9200, take the TP, and you're risk is made good. On that kind of day you aren't going to ridge soar it to 10,300. Or we could make the TP cylinder large enough, and ding any entry into it preventing a low entry.

Not everyone will agree with me (including the CD I think) but I'd have a 3 mile cylinder on Snow Peak with a 10,300 (or maybe 10,000) bottom. Points penalty down to 9200, below that scored as a landout at Carson City. I'm pretty confident that would get voted up at the pilot's meeting if they had the chance, though it would not be unanimous.