"Avoid stupid group think"

I heard this term from Pete Alexander, but I'm unsure if he brought it from working with engineers in his professional career or just came up with it for racing sailplanes. But it applies to gaggle flying.

Let's use Pete's experience at the SGP on the day I lawn darted because I failed to shift gears. He came in second because the gaggle kept wanting to push at warp speed into the dirt. Pete and the winner decided to slow down and take a weaker climb, avoiding getting stuck and did well that day. The gaggle kept pushing waiting for a stronger climb that never happened.

With gliders all around resembling NASCAR racing it is easy to keep pushing too hard. At times it feels like the first one to turn loses. This can be faster because everyone pushes themselves faster, but you can get 'stupid group think' and everyone pushes into the dirt very easily.

Alone you might know you don't want to be in the bottom 50% of the sky, but when you have company that is still blasting along you get lulled into a false sense of security. Alone you might (based on intuition) take a climb or deviate to a small growing wisp. In a gaggle you might not have the desire to go with that intuition.

The gaggle may not be flying fast enough because someone is afraid to push out and the entire gaggle hangs back, especially common on weak and/or blue days. Or the opposite happens and the gaggle might be pushing a lot harder then normal because someone is trying to break away and nobody wants to get left behind.

Many times I have been in a gaggle and the climb dropped off and I stayed because nobody else was leaving and I didn't want to be first. The fear being that the gaggle may find a thermal behind me. Another common error is actually just getting distracted by avoiding other glider and losing focus on the climb rate, looking out and planning ahead for when and where you need to leave.

In another article we will talk about getting away from the gaggle....in a few years...when I figure it out.