Since it is nearly impossible to fly around here in the winter, I spent some time reviewing my flight logs from last season. I logged over 170 hours of flight time in 67 flights in Australia, Florida, New England, Maryland, and Texas. 45 of my launches were behind a tug and the remaining 22 were by running starts.
I flew 1766 linear miles (straight line distance from start to finish), 2789 optimized miles, and 5700 protected miles.
On average I covered 41 miles in 2.5 hours, for a speed of 16.4 mph.
All my flights used the identical set of equipment; a Moyes Litespeed 4S, an old Moyes Matrix harness, and a Flytec 5030.
4 comments:
Tom, I will ask since no one else has.
Can you explain optimized and protected miles?
You had a great year of flying, hope 2006 is just as enjoyable
Ron
I used the log book within CompeGPS and Excel to calculate those values. CompeGPS says "Projected distance: This figure is the result of calculating the horizontal projection of the distance covered (without taking into account the distances covered due to ascending or descending). Lineal distance: This is the straight-line distance between the departure and arrival points." I assumed the optimized distance is the distance calculated using the HOLC formula.
I wish you and Elsa a happy new year. Are you in training for the worlds? ;-)
Hi Tom, I’ve been enjoying your blog for the past year. I hope you keep it going. Is this another way to answer Rob’s question? If you were to fly a triangular course of 5 mile legs with only straight flying (except for the two turn points) your Linear miles would be zero (you started and ended your flight at the same point), your Optimized miles would be 30 (there’s a bonus of 2x if you’ve flown a valid triangle so 3 x 5 x 2 = 30), and your projected miles would be 15. Of course if you did a lot of turning in thermals your projected distance would be much greater. Now some may ask how could fly a triangle without any thermaling? Should I bring up the subject of power? Have a great year! Lee
I'm no expert but your description seems to fit my understanding.
By the way, I should drop out sled rides and ridge soaring flights and see what my average XC ground speed is on XC flights.
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