Tales Of The Bloody Triangle

wrote on 2/5/2021 5:55 PM:
On Friday, February 5, 2021 at 3:20:30 PM UTC-5, John Good wrote:
Should east coast triangles that use the ridge be discounted ... ?

I recall a long-ago comment from Wally Scott (probably the all-time master of the downwind dash). He felt that the value of the 1000-km Diplome was being watered down by flights that used ridge and wave. He suggested that maybe these should be recognized in a different category from flights done only in thermal lift.

Tom Knauff gave a cogent reply, along these lines: "It will be time to listen to Wally on this subject when he starts flying his long straight-out flights upwind, instead of downwind."

Wally did much more than downwind dashes, Wally was absolutely correct when it came to assessing the value of the ridge flight vs thermal and straight out flights. I met Wally back in the 80's, a true gentleman and avid glider pilot.

I don't see how downwind dashes is inherently more difficult or more worthy of admiration than
long ridge flights. Wally lived in an area ideal for downwind thermal dashes, and I'm guessing
if he had lived near Karl and Knauff, he would have flown some amazing ridge flights, and might
have thought "dirty downwind dashes" were diluting the value of a 1000k diplome. Why not say
using a Open class glider (which he did) instead of a 1-26 for the downwind dashes was diluting
the 1000k diplome?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1