The Yellow Triangle

Originally Posted by Tango Eight

On Monday, March 1, 2021 at 11:04:02 AM UTC-5, wrote:
In my 1989 edition of "The Joy Of Soaring"
Its got alot of wonderful illustrations.
On page 125 It graphically shows the effect of wind gradient during the turn from base to final, where so many accidents occur.
The cause of these accidents? Airspeed to low.
On page 126 it shows the effects, on a gliders glide path and airspeed, of a thermal breaking off the airport and drifting with the wind in to the final approach leg.
Cause of these accidents from glider landing short, too low airspeed.
I Don't have much experience flying east of the Mississippi, some but not much.
All I know is in the West, landing anytime after noon, IMHO, This Yellow Triangle speed is a proven recipe for disaster. It's been proven many many, many times to be be WAY to low.
Ok If you HAVE TO land in a 600' long field so be it.
But 99.8% of the time I'm landing on 5-7000'+ of asphalt.
Have a look at the guy being lowered out of his ASK 21 in Germany, In a new thread.
I bet he could have used more airspeed.
I'm not trying to cause any trouble, just address a long term problem that we have had since day 1.
And don't get high on the tug either.
Fly safe in 2021
Nick
T

Aw geeze. The yellow triangle is an instrument marking with a specific purpose. It is the "proven recipe" for a minimum energy approach speed in still air. That's all.

Spinning in off base to final turn has as much to do with bad pattern planning as anything else, and the usual reason the speed is low, nose is high, turn is skidded is because the pattern sucked. Aiming for a base / final turn at 1/3 - 1/2 mile, 300 agl (or higher, as conditions warrant) solves many problems. There are plenty of conditions in which significant extra speed is warranted, but it isn't *all* conditions.

T8

+1 Evan has nailed it