When to Wait and When to Go

When you have artillery pointed at your tail it's definitely time to go. Otherwise, the simple, fail-safe, hard-fast rule, for determining when to stay and wait it out...well, there is not one. I had some questions and was asked to expand on the newsletter from two weeks ago. But a lot of this is intuition and experience.

Waiting in zero sink while waiting for the thermal to kick-off might be the best option. If you landout you cannot get any closer to home. Be realistic if .1 knt is the best you can reach right now, .1 knt is better then a field. Are the conditions improving? How does the sky look? How does the terrain ahead look (landable and thermal producing)? How has it been? There is no magic number (climb rate or altitude) for when to wait or when to move on. I would guess that almost all of my landouts resulted from leaving something I should have stayed in. In other words, most of them were avoidable.

I have mentioned before "Can you beat it?" if you can get a better average ahead then go. However you need to be realistic, can you actually make it to a better thermal? Because you are planning all the way to the ground then you should be able to realistically guess how many options you have. Remember what George Lee says "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket."

There is no hard-deck altitude I use for when it is time to stop and wait or give up and land.
In Finland, at the WGC I opted to retreat to a known field at a much lower altitude then pick a new field on course. When there is a 1 sq mile field with no obstructions you could give up a little later. If the field is tricky because of the size and obstacles then you focus on a much better pattern earlier on. At no point am I saying you're still trying to climb out at a few hundred feet. With over 25,000 landings I still fly boring textbook patterns.

I have talked about gear shifting before, that is used earlier on in the flight in an attempt to not to get stuck. But once you notice you are stuck and you are waiting at some point hoping something will build to get you climbing again. You have to wait until you can get something better. I have had many days at home waiting on a ridge for a thermal to come up the mountain so I could make final glide home

 Garret Willat holds a flight instructor rating with over 8000 hours in sailplanes. His parents have owned Sky Sailing Inc. since 1979. He started instructing the day after his 18th birthday. Since then, Garret has represented the US Junior team in 2003 and 2005. He graduated from Embry-Riddle with a bachelor's degree in Professional Aeronautics. Garret represented the US Open Class team in 2008 and 2010 and the Club Class team in 2014. Garret has won 3 US National Championships.