T o d d P a t t i s t a é c r i t :

"Paul Remde" wrote:

I agree with Helmut Reichmann on this topic. Thermals move with the wind.
Optimizing speed between them has nothing to do with the wind speed. If you
were flying downwind between thermals would you slow down? No.

I completely agree with Paul on this.

Of course it is all different when you are on final glide.

And mostly (but not completely) on this point.

+1

The best speed is *always* given by McCready rule. The problem being that if the wind is too strong (or the lift too poor), the best cross country speed available is *negative* !

This appears when the speed-to-fly is lower than the best-glide-speed-with-headwind (which does increase with wind strength) :
- in this case, forget McCready and leave your thermal at best-glide-speed-with-headwind, either to the goal or to a field before it ;-)
- if not, forget the wind and continue climbing until you reach the glide path given by setting you McCready to the current average rate of climb.

Denis