Diamond Distance flight plan

I got my Diamond Goal done last year and I'm going for Diamond Distance this
year. I'd like comments on one of the routes I'm considering.

I understand I can have three turnpoints + start/finish. We have prevailing
wind (sea breeze) out of the SE. Good days will see well spaced 3-4 kt
thermals to 6 or 7k agl. One route I'm considering basically "yo-yo's"
along an out & return course. To illustrate, there are three turnpoints
along a line running NW from my home field--let's call the closest A, then B
and the furtherst C. The route is Start - C - A - B - Start/Finish.

The downside is that I'm beating into a headwind (usually only 6-10 kts) for
1/2 of the flight.
The upside is that by spending about 1/2 the course covering the same ground
4 times I'm betting I can benefit from good knowledge of the local
conditions to improve my speed.

I'm sure others have used this strategy--what pro's & con's did you find?

It seems this would depend upon how strong the prevailing wind is and
the performance of your ship into the wind.

Since you already seem to be concerned about this why not find a great
crew person, train them, and accomplish the flight straight-out. If the
terrain permits you to do this you will find it to be great fun! Run
with the wind.

"T o d d P a t t i s t" wrote in message
...
"303SAM" wrote:
*snip*
Thanks for the comments

I'm betting I can benefit from good knowledge of the local
conditions to improve my speed.

Unless you're already making really good thermal choices,
you won't make it, so I doubt that you should expect much
speed increase from having been through the area before. If
it's an option to go downwind farther, that will often be
easier. A good reason to yo-yo is because the terrain is
better (ridge or higher ground) or because you can make more
attempts by promising to keep the retrieve short. :-)

This is a big part of it--going another 50 miles inland improves conditions
a lot and I don't want to do a downwind dash or big triangle/rectanglish
course in order to put a limit on the length of a possible retrieve.


Good luck.

Thanks

This is my year to work on flying faster. I don't fly to the bottom of the
workable band, I stay in thermals after their strength has decreased and I
just plain fly slower than I should between thermals. I do kind of like the
idea of a 500k O&R due to the motivation to fly faster created by turning
around and realizing that you're 150 mi from home and have a limited amount
of time to get there.

I just did some calcs on 20-30 mile final glides from last year and found my
ship's performance is better than I thought. I was getting 33:1 at 78 mph
in absolutely dead air and got 27:1 at 98 mph. My 29 year old mistress is
looking pretty good!

--
T o d d P a t t i s t - "WH" Ventus C
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)

303SAM wrote:
"T o d d P a t t i s t" wrote in message
...

"303SAM" wrote:

*snip*
Thanks for the comments


I'm betting I can benefit from good knowledge of the local
conditions to improve my speed.

Unless you're already making really good thermal choices,
you won't make it, so I doubt that you should expect much
speed increase from having been through the area before. If
it's an option to go downwind farther, that will often be
easier. A good reason to yo-yo is because the terrain is
better (ridge or higher ground) or because you can make more
attempts by promising to keep the retrieve short. :-)


This is a big part of it--going another 50 miles inland improves conditions
a lot and I don't want to do a downwind dash or big triangle/rectanglish
course in order to put a limit on the length of a possible retrieve.


Good luck.


Thanks

This is my year to work on flying faster. I don't fly to the bottom of the
workable band, I stay in thermals after their strength has decreased and I
just plain fly slower than I should between thermals. I do kind of like the
idea of a 500k O&R due to the motivation to fly faster created by turning
around and realizing that you're 150 mi from home and have a limited amount
of time to get there.

I just did some calcs on 20-30 mile final glides from last year and found my
ship's performance is better than I thought. I was getting 33:1 at 78 mph
in absolutely dead air and got 27:1 at 98 mph. My 29 year old mistress is
looking pretty good!


--
T o d d P a t t i s t - "WH" Ventus C
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)



Did you tell us what your mistress is?

She's a Glasflugel Mosquito 303a. Wings and tail surfaces redone by
Applebay 6 years ago. Beautiful.

PS - to the guy I bought her from--I promise to get her back into
competition in a couple years.

Did you tell us what your mistress is?

Sam, I did similar to what you plan for a 500km in the UK. The first leg
was into wind, about 200km, and took half the actual flight time I the
event. Next was downwind about 150km, then upwind about 50, then home
about 100km. The route is along major roads (the A14/A1, for those in
the UK who might be interested) which simplifies retrieves as well as
navigation.
The turn points and navigation (I used map, compass and eyeball, not
GPS, in those days) happen to be easy from my home site on this route,
with no airspace problems, and the best thermals for us happen with this
wind direction (NW).

Plan was to use cloud streets as far as possible - that worked OK.
Another advantage was that if I found I was too slow having turned A and
reached B, I could abandon the task and cut it to 400km with a good
chance of getting home. Had I been really slow on the first leg, I could
have turned back at say half way through the soarable part of the day
and still probably got home with a tailwind and accumulated height to
help. Also, there are gliding sites at turnpoints B and C, so handy if
a landout became necessary.

As it happened, it all worked OK, even with a head wind on the way out
of 17 knots (measured by somebody flying with a GPS the same day in the
same area). Only problem was my camera jammed so I had no proof of the
flight for badge purposes.

Hope that helps (the planning, not the faulty camera!). Chris N.




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Clarification - my points A, B and C were in order of turning them, not
the same as Sam's order of distance from home. Chris N.




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