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By the
way, anybody who hasn't seen the rules of the air, including the 200 ft rule
might like to look at the back inside page of a GFA logbook, its all
there!
John
Parncutt
It is written:
One could surmise that the author hadn't heard of the 200 foot rule either.
LOL!
One could, but one would probably also be wrong....
Mike Valentine, being the practical and thinking person he was,
probably foresaw that to lay great stress on an arbitrary figure would
possible cause most people to miss the point entirely - something which many
of the well intentioned contributors to this discussion have demonstrated with
exceptional skill.
This 200 foot rule is a classic example of the old
adage that "Rules are made for the guidance of wise men, and the obedience of
fools".
Wombat and a couple of others in this discussion, notably Kevin
Roden, have more correctly pointed out that notwithstanding the 200 foot rule,
sensible, and therefore safe flying in shared thermals is essentially a
product of airmanship. Indeed I will suggest that it is one of the most
crucial and important aspects of true airmanship. If your technique in
sharing thermals keeps you at all times no closer that 200 feet and six inches
from others, but causes those in other gliders concern, fear, or sheer terror,
you have a long way to go in this area.
Leigh touched on a very
interesting point when he reflected on the thermalling parameters of his Super
Grunau. Allow me to expand. How should everyone behave in a
thermal which contains (say) his Grunau, Bernard's ASH-25, and a club
ASK-21 on passenger flight, all with different flying speeds and pilot
aspirations? This is quite possible at my home club. The
only thing which we might not expect is someone in a hang glider to be part of
the equation. Lets throw one of those in too. Suddenly
the magic 200 foot rule gets pretty low on the list of priorities does
it not?
Which is where it should have been right at the
start. There is much more to safe and considerate thermal sharing than a
concentration on an an arbitrary measure of distance dreamed up
somewhere by a doubtless well intentioned committee. For
mine, the concept of "see and be seen" carries much more
weight.
Finally, since the name of Mike Valentine has been
mentioned in this discussion, perhaps I can relate a story which he told
me once about the judging of distance.
Mike, in one of his earlier
lives was enjoying the more pleasurable aspects of his then job as a
supervisor training air traffic controllers. At the time he was
flying circuits at an airfield somewhere in (probably) some superannuated
military jet with an Indian co-pilot (It would be wouldn't it).
Mike commented at the time on the fact that his Indian friend seemed to judge
his round out and landings very well. The reply? (In Mike's best Indian
accent) "Oh yes - my instructor always told me to start the round out
when at the height of two elephants!"
Which raises the question as to
whether Indian glider pilots might measure their separation in thermals by "x"
elephants?
I hope not. A thermal filled with imaginary elephants
is not a comfortable thought.
Regards,
Terry
;-)
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