On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 3:49:52 AM UTC-5, krasw wrote:
No one circles at 300ft, that is just bs. At that altitude you are on short final for landing. Don't believe everything you read folks. If someone has done it once and survive, congrats, please do not pass the story on.

I am still waiting for the data, myself. I have flight logs of guys who flew themselves into a bad situation and essentially (my term) panicked, wouldn't commit to the landing because the landing was bound to be crappy. Turning downwind at 80 feet will make it so! I have flight logs of engine starts at 300' with no place to crash. We have the pictures of the wrecks that happened when the engine didn't start at 300'. I have no logs of Nationals contenders or Regional winners that show anything like an intentional roll of the dice to a very low, day or contest winning thermal pulled out of the weeds. Pre-GPS stories are **stories**. Some may even be true. But if you put one of the famous risk takers of old (there were some) against any decent modern soaring pilot in similar hardware, they would not stand a chance. Steady, efficient flying beats the hell out of attempted heroics.

Sometimes the flight into "unlandable terrain" you thought was crazy was simply well managed. There may be a field you don't know about. Flying into any situation that you can survive unscathed only by figuring out a way to climb is sheer lunacy. No one can do this very many times before statistics catch up with them.

The problem children w.r.t. low thermalling are the new guys. I have circled at 300'. When I was a new guy. I'd struggle down to 300' then finally roll the wings level and land, generally in some huge flat benign field. When confronted with more challenging options, I was a little smarter. I made some spaghetti patterns down to about 300' as recently as perhaps 8 years ago. And I finally concluded that it was much more satisfying to give up a little more gracefully and fly my pattern and landing with panache. While I don't enjoy the risk or inconvenience, the patterns and landings are usually quite interesting and even fun. There are always problems to be solved, the places I end up are often very beautiful.

Important aside: Anyone who has had the opportunity to do some RC model soaring will learn much about thermal structure below 500'. And none of what you learn will make you inclined to try it at full scale. It is quite unlikely to work.

As an instructor and XC advocate, the single biggest concern I have is getting the new guys calibrated on risk assessment & risk management. We have seen cases of guys who are very willing to stack on risk in attempt to hang with glider pilots who are much better soaring pilots. Depending on terrain (and we have much that is difficult in New England) that can / eventually will lead to disaster if unchecked. The new guy mindset seems to be (in some cases) "XC soaring is dangerous, I might as well get used to it and man up". I wonder how much this attitude is fueled by threads such as this?

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8