soaringeagle

if your ignorant on the subject its ok to admit it you don't need to be insulting and arrogant

just say 'i didn;t know that' it doesn't diminish you in any way

about 8 minutes in

paul sweitzer a name you may know as 1 of the most well known sailplane designers

his 1st flights were in a primary glider

I agree with Larry, it doesn't make much sense to continue in this thread. Way too much wrong and misleading 'information' and I'm sure that is not possible to start your flying career by flying any single seat aircraft.

guess again

how did the wright brothers start start? in fact the very 1st flight was a manstrapping wings to his back and jumping off a hill

they started with a bungy launch thaat only got them 5-10 feet off the ground

in fact, if you watched the soaring documentary, the guy narrating it started his flying career with just that.. a single seat priimary doing bungy launches, then moved on to using a model a then to launching off a ridge, then finaly stepped up to a sailplane

its right there in the video evidence i provided

did you watch it

sorry the 200 hours was for comercial rating

and the source was memory

just remembered the details wrong

and the source for the primary glider use in training came from multiple sources, dozens of pilots who started their training that way, documentaries, the soaring museum, soaring magazine that had articles on it.

kids i went to school with who were in cap

i think wiki entries even

yup

from wiki

[h=2]Modern primaries[/h]Modern versions of primary gliders are still built, but, while they are much like the originals in appearance, they are usually constructed with composites and safety enhancements.

[h=2]Types[/h]Examples include:

• Bonomi BS.16 Allievo Bonomi
  
• Cloudcraft Dickson Primary
  
• Detroit G1 Gull
  
• DFS SG 38 Schulgleiter
  
• Elliotts Primary EoN
  
• Jongblood Primary
  
• Manuel VI Primary
  
• Payne I.C.1
  
• Reynard R.4 Primary
  
• Sands Replica 1929 Primary Glider
  
• Schweizer SGP 1-1
  
• Slingsby Grasshopper
  
• Slingsby Primary^[2]
  
• Å oÅ¡tarić Vrabac
  
• Stamer Lippisch Zögling^[3]
  

^{philadeelphia glider council had a beautiful slingby that was in use up untill just a few years ago when it was donated to the soaring musueam.}

^{i almost got a chance to fly it}

^{i think that actualy was a 2 seater side by side}

^{on fb i am also in several vintage and antique glider groups where its discussed often}

i dont know if every cap program used them but many did as the very 1st intro to flight

Perhaps it's the lack of news coverage, but you hardly ever hear of a glider crash, even a fatal one. Is it actually, as stated above, that glider pilots know they have but one chance to land safely and they are hyper-cautious? Or are there more accidents than we know about? BTW, does the NTSB ever investigate one, or it only for powered-flight aircraft?

there are rare crashes, usualy the result of a medical condition and yes they are investigated

we lost an excelent pilot recently who even had a motorglider but had a heart attack

Oh, dear now I'M getting involved in this fairly pointless discussion. As far as I know, the Wrights were always working to achieve POWERED flight. They built several gliders to refine their aerodynamic designs, but the Wright Flyer was designed and assembled as a powered airplane.

wrong! they were only interested in glider flight then someone convinces wilbur to add an engine while orvile stayed committed to glider flight. in fact the powered flight was thought of as a novelty that wouldnt last

MRZIPPY is so right. Every simmer should try, one day, to have a glider flight.

Being winched up is actually very exciting, & it's so quiet.

Our Virtual Club mentored 60 kids a year, as part of a 2 year project, lectures, practicals on FS2004 & flights on 'Wings Parade'day, & gliding flights were sponsored twice a year. Maybe a microflight if possible as well.

 

Great fun, & some seat of your pants flying as well. Teaches navigation, etc.

condor just released 3 south african sceneries i'm waiting for some from kenya where my fiances from (luyha) and seat of your pants accurately describes it cause you can feel the lift and you become very sensative to the slightest motions of the air. you 'feel' for lift as much as look for it.. yiu can feel a thermal affecting you from pretty far off guiding you to it, by trying to steer you away from it. and when you fly right through 1 you might hit your head on the canopy if its strong.

do you know of anywhere in kenya with soaring i plan on spending a month or so there each year

also.. gliders give you the best views of any other planes

cfr is that canadian

in the fars its 200 hours in usa

but in germany like i said my friend started at 9

and well the primary was only flown in the sim and i was just surprised by how much i had to push it forward to get that extra few knorts to reach approach speed

when your sitting out in open air with your feet dangling over the ground ..perhaps the angle just looked alot steeper then it was i just remember having to push the stick and thinking god it looks like i'm pointing straight down

its probably alot diferent sitting on that seat with nothing around you

and that glider documkentary showed them using primary gliders 1st then stepping up tto some huge bulky ship

no the primary gliders were single seat and they started em off with bungy launches onbly getting mayby 15 feet off the ground gliding maybe 30 and landing just to get a feel for it, then once ready launch off a hill, then a ridge. civil air patrol has uused them..as recently as 10 years ago, not sure if they still do

and no you need 200 hours of solo flight

if you have vast experience in other flying you can solo fast.. our founder soloes in just 14 mikl=nutes logged time. and was an instructor in 2 months

but hes a bit of a legand

most with no flight experience it takes 1 season (less if u fly daily0 to solo and 200 hours solo flight to get your license

Your description of primary gliders looks like you are referring to 1930s gliders like the SG38 but even with that one your 3-1 glideslope guess is far off. It's almost 9:1 and nobody learns to fly on such an aircraft.

 

I don't know why you want to make the impression that gliding is something complicated or requires great precision while it is in fact the among the most basic and easiest form of flying.

 

1. Even if you have never flown before you can expect to be released for your first solo after only 30 short flights.

2. You can start working on your glider license and fly solo at the age of 14.

3. To get a gliding license you need only 6hrs total and 3hrs of solo flying.

4. The approach speed for basic gliders is less than 40kts so there's not exactly a high degree of precision required to hit an airfield which has a runway that's a few hundred meters long.

 

Gliding is very easy, rather cheap and great fun and hence it's highly recommended to get people into flying. :)

no no i never said it was complicated or hard to learn (gliding, soaring however takes alot more knowledge, even after 40 years your still learning new things. some of the pilots i fly with are in their 70s and stil go to seminars to advance their knowledge and still learn more to become a better pilot. like watching the water, for signs of where a wave is bouncing, or the swirl of a thermal) even while running a ridge watching the leaves on the trees for signs of a wind change.

gliding is simple.. and yes kids can learn, in germany i know a girl who started at 9, by 18 was flying with the world champs all over the world. i met her when myspace was still a thing cause her profile photo was her sitting on the wing, with her feet dangeling in the air 20,000 feet over the himalayas

shes now flying in world championship competitions

so literaly almost anyone can learn

but you know since you have glidser experience how when you fly cross country your constantly looking at where you can land, choosing your rout based on availability of landing fields.

and in the primary, yes the best l/d is maybe 8 or 9 to 1 but not at approach speed which you have to push the stick forward to speed up and come in at a pretty steel slope then flair when your closer to the runway

and YES THEY DO USE THEM TO TEACH FLIGHT

not everywhere but many cadet training programs use them as the 1st introduction to flight.

the pint is that if you learn to think like a glider pilot, your always more prepared for any emergency situation and react mkore appropriately.. thats it, thats the entire point

a 233 is a sailplane, meaning it is capable odf usinglift and gaining height.

a primary glider like the old biplanes have no surfaces to create drag except the fusalage itself, steepening the glide slope is accomplished by slip only.

however the primary gliders glide slope is already so steep that your pretty much on final from launch. (from a ridge top into a valley, or often bungy launched and landing in the same feild you launch from)

they have no cockpit, open air.

the wright flyer is an example of a primary glider

the reason the soaring missions are barely mentioned is.. they suck.. sure its a taste of what soaring is, how to thermal or use ridge lift.. thats it

it doesn;t compare to the thrill of racing through the alps at 5 knots below vne for 600 miles (i've actualy done 14 1/2 hours and 1300 miles world record distances twice)

and to the guy going on and on about sales

information is not sales its information

when your flying a cessna or a mig, are you constantly aware of where you will land if you lose an engine? do you always know at every moment how far you canmake it based on altitude if your engine fails?

this is why, no matter what you fly, if you have glider experience, your always automaticly a better pilot

i believe a cessna is roughly 5-1 a 747 13-1 a wingsuite is similar to a primary glider 3-1 while sailplanes are 40-1 to 70-1

ofcourse your speed changes that.. thats at your best lift/drag speed

knowing the performance of your plane, any plane, power off at a specific speed letsyou know whether you can make it to an airfield, or, like skully, have to land in a river or field.

then you can look at many airline accidents that were the result of pilot error.

1 in particular comes to mind when the ap suddenly kicked off

in this plane the pilot and copilots controls were not linked but the pilots overrode the copilots

when the ap went off the pilot pulled back on the stick to prevent a dive causing astall, the copilot did the right thing and pushed forward. it wasn't untill they were at 2500 ft that the copilot asked wait, are you pulling back on the stick? and by that point, there was no hope for recovery.. the pilot, too dependent on the ap, held it in a stall till it was too late.

this is again a case where having the experience of "pure flight' unpowered, not reliant on advanced avionics, and 100% hands on stick flying the pilots reactions would have been appropriate for the situation, and the crash averted.

i don't see how info that could be lifesaving is 'agressive sales pitches'

and i only mentioned our org because of the fact that our founder who has multiple world records prefers gliders. in fact, our chief safety officer just recently earned his master pilots rating.. a rating very few in history ever achieve. yet he too prefers gliders.

i would suggest you search out 'virtual soaring' forums. the soaring/glider dynamics in most sims just suck.. like for instance in fsx the tow rope just waggles around comically with no realism at all.

but when it comes to soaring sims, (especialy the competition soaring sims like condor) theres a very active community. and i would say 99-100% are realworld glider pilots.

several are some of the top competition pilots.

in the european condor club condor-club.eu the top pilot has flown over 250,000 miles

and to the same guy thats been kinda nasty with all the sales talk

yes its my 1st post

is this how you welcome new members?

actualy been a member a few years probably from when i wasted alotta $ on fsx and addons and weather mods (i'm only interested in soaring) and it just was so lacking

here this kinda covers the whole history of soaring

it was orville wright who thought, and was right, that unpowered flight would someday be sustainable for up to 10-12 hours and hundreds of miles, even over 1000

I know Larry is tired of stressing this....Lnuss.. small l and last name. We will all get it right sometime in this new year! ;)

huh?

Perhaps you should look up the profile on Iuss. ;) He, like many of us either, is or was a RW active pilot with lots of hours.

 

And yes, as a disabled RW pilot, I now fly sims exclusively. But that doesn't put me or any one else in a position to judge others or their point of view.

 

Especially since this is a free site, we mostly try to avoid making overreaching statements. Instead we tend to enjoy our hobby/s and try to get along.

as a disabled pilot you should be extra interested since soaring is the most accessible form of flight, and you can get back in the air http://www.freedomswings.org that i'm on the board of over 40 years ago added hand controls to a glider and now itts a standard option on dozens of gliders

in fact

this guys 1 of the worlds best

thats from the world glider championships last year

i never expected such a negative argumentative group

I don't know what kind of glider is 'pointed down at a pretty extreme angle' during the approach and with the divebrakes etc. you can control the gliding angle and hence gliding distance within a pretty big range.

 

It seems that you are severely underestimating e.g. airline pilots and their abilities/training.

 

If it's a heavy 777 or a medium sized A320, we routinely do train all engine out approaches, even in IMC with a low ceiling.

 

They key to success in this case is crew coordination, not gliding experience ;)

 

Furthermore every GA pilot trains engine out approaches as well and with the low LD ratio of a C-152 engine out landing are definitely a challenge and require considerable skills since there's not much room for adjustment.

primary gliders liker the 1 in the photo have no dive brakes or spoilers. and just to speed up to approach speed your pointed down at 25 or 30 degrees ..maybe less but when your sitting on whats basicly a lawnchair out in the open air, it sure seems like an extreme angle. approach speed i would guess is a 3-1 glideslope steeper then a cessna at best glide slope.

and thats my point

when every single landing is an engine off approach where you have to get it perfect every rtime its nit just a matter of training once and forgetting it, but its muscle memory, something your extremely proficient at

sales? what sales? and at least with the soaring sim community almost all are real pilots as am i. i would think many real world o pilots use sims too.

yes you can soar in fsx with cumulus x addon (i mentioned that) but its not that realistic..in any way except the scenery. the handeling and weather modeling affecting soaring is pretty poor at best

xplane soarings only possiible in the soaring training and soaring missions as there is no thermals ridge or wave lift of any kind so the best you can do is glide

I DON'T SELL ANYTHING i have been a lifelong volunteer.

i did mention freedoms wings because its a 1 of a kind org that teaches disabled glider pilots (like me)

and lets take safety out of the equation if we are strictly talking sim pilots and take into account the pure flight aspect, without all the autopilots and everything, without thrust,

leearning tio fly without relying on all that is invaluable. for instance getting a chance to fly a primary glider thats basicly a controlled fall you really appreciate the control of the plane, being able to maintain a proper approach speed while pointed down at a pretty extreme angle then flare at the right moment for a good landing. being able to fly at high spe4eds without a 400 hp engine you really learn the physics of flight, and know how to react in any non standard situation..

seems the airforce finds value in it

actualy it is FACTUAL it is the opinion of the airforce of most countries that now also include glider training

and its simple common sense. since every simgle landing has to be perfect, since your constantly aware of being within safe gliding distance of a safe landing spot, you also learn to judge a power off glide slope to a 1 degree of accuracy, your always aware how far you can go given the altitude you have available plus your used to hands on stick flying not fly by dial, alowing advanced electronics to do all the real flying for you.

so whenever anything goes wrong in a power plane, if your glider trained you know how to react properly and land safely.

that is why literaly every single case of a 'mirical landing' the pilot was glider trained

it can save lives

its indisputable

if you know how to fly, and land, without power, without advanced electronics, your going to be a better pilot

so hows that opinion?

the number 1 reason all pilots should have glider experience is, it will make you a better pilot. a safer pilot.

just about every 'miracle landing' (like the miracle on the hudson) were only possible due to the pilots having glider training. Skully would have splattered his plane into a densely populated neighborhood killing everyone if he trusted the towers directions over his glider pilots training.

but furthermore, soaring will quickly become your favorite way to fly!

case in point, I fly with freedoms wings international

our founder seen in the vid, irv stobel holds 3 world records (747 transatlantic speed records) was the 2nd person to fly 'the worlds fastest plane' (f106 i think it is) he was the 1st to put on a space suite, and has flown everything from military to commercial, but nothing ever excited him like gliders did.

soaring, is also the only kind of flying that will often have the pilot giggling and exclaiming 'this is awesome' again and again, even if they have flown gliders for 4 decades.

soaring and gliding are pure flight, powered by the atmosphere itself.

lets start off with a little bit of history.

in the beginning, a man strapped some wings onto his back, and jumped off a hill, gliding only a few seconds, and landing just a short distance away.

the next step in gliding begins the earliest history of flight, the wright brothers flyer was originaly designed to be just a glider, adding an engine to a plane was 1st thought of as nothing more then a gimmick.

this led to the age of the primary glider, still used today in some flight training schools to teach the very basics of flight. launchesd off a mountain, and landing in a valley below, flight records were set, with flight times recorded in seconds.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]214504[/ATTACH]

these had a best glide slope less then that of a cessna with a failed engine.

performance improved alot over the years with glide slopes improving from 4-1 to now 70-1 (best l/d or lift over drag with a 70 miles for every mile of altitude lost) but whats more important is sources of lift were discovered.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]214505[/ATTACH]

this marvel of modern engineering is the perlan 2 space glider built to explore the upper atmosphere (and test climate change effects without contaminating samples with exhausts) it has nearly reached 80,000 feet and is attempting to reach 90,000 ft, without using any fuel.

So how do you turn gliding into soaring?

by mastering the atmosphere, thats how. the atmosphere is fluidic, dynamic, in motion, and full of energy.

solar: the sun heating the earth creates differential heating. when you fly beneath cumulus clouds you may feel a strong bump. these are thermals, gliders can circle in these rising columns of air and climb. diving faster through the sinking air, to fly long distances at fairly high speeds.

wind: wind energy is used in 2 main ways.

Ridge soaring when wind hits an object, like a mountain ridge, it has nowhere to go, but up. Ridge running is some of the most exciting, and beautiful ways to fly.

ridge running uses the strong winds flowing over the mountains to race along at high speeds for great distances. There is no way to get the pure epic beauty from any other type of plane, not only do gliders give you the best unobstructed views of your surroundings, but the strongest lift, the blazing fast speeds, are found close up and personal with the most remote and beautiful mountainsw in the world.

wave soaring when the winds striking a ridge, and the airmass is stable, and the wind speed increases with altitude, mountain waves form downwind, often several waves many miles apart, and far away from the source will form, these standing waves are theorized to go clear to the stratosphere. these are how gliders are able to fly higher then jets, without using fuel. these mountain waves are what the perlan 2 space glider uses to get above 78,000 feet.

Competition

gliding as a competitive sport has been around since flight has existed. Competition has been the primary driving force when it comes to advancements in aerodynamics and performance.

Glider, or sailplane racing takes skill and courage. Even before the race starts, 40 or more gliders maybe circling together in a single thermal at close range in the pre race gaggle, each 1 trying to outclimb the rest to be in the best position for a fast start.

then the race begins

but thats not the only way to compete.

Glider aerobatics raw powerless power and grace under g forces

with g force limits up to 12 g's and extreme maneuverability glider aerobatics are not only graceful and beautiful, but a highly competitive sport all its own

Soaring glider simulators the good the bad and the soso

fsx

yes fsx has soaring, if you add cumulusx for thermals and ridge lift.

advantages: very few, except being able to soar the entire world (like everest) and sightseeing (like the taj mahal and pyramids) or if you want to blow off some steam cause a certain golfers always golfing where you fly, shutting down your airspace every single weekend

disadvantages: tow characteristics are practically comical, 'real world weather' even with the expensive rex weather engine changes too drasticly too suddenly without any real reasons for it. (but you can try soaring hurricanes, which i have multiple times)

flight charachteristics are barely realistic, never once was able to spin it.

biggest disadvantage is even if you create a glider specific multiplayer channel, jets, are fascinated by gliders and wil keep buzzing you or trying to fly the ridges your flying and crash over and over...often crashing into you and that brings me to crashing, no matter what you do wrong you just get a message 'you have crashed' unlike the others where you might spin from 60,000 feet with 1 wing ripped off and still have realistic control over the crashing.

condor 1 and condor 2

I will discuss both, but would recommend condor 2.

condor 1 has thousands of user submitted sceneries with more added all the time so you can soar a big chunk of the world. condor 1 only has thermal and ridge lift, but is vastly superior to fsx in soaring weather generation. however the graphics and terrain detail level left room for improvement. flight and tow and winch launch characteristics are all very accurate, including tow plane prop wake, glider handling and performance. and realistic results from overspeeding (high speed flutter followed by loss of a wing) and excessive g forces

enter condor 2, and the long awaited dream of realistic wave flights. condor 2 drasticly increases the terrain detail, ridge lift is even more accurately generated, and now, even mountain waves complete with lenticular clouds alow for altitude record attempts (many sceneries have records over 55,000 even 60,000 feet)

advantages: highly accurate soaring, large community of competitive pilots, most real world glider pilots, from students using it as a training tool, to serious well known competition pilots using it to keep up proficiency during the off season, or just to compete in a virtual environment where taking risks has less catastrophic consequences.

also includes a primary glider, and, an aerobatic 'swift'

challenge yourself to intense competition against hundreds of pilots

disadvantages: only runs on pc has fairly high vid card requirements (as you saw from the glitch in the 1 vid, solved by makings ome vid setting tweaks)

silent wings

silent wings alows competition against either real life pilots or ai pilots

flight characteristics are pretty good, tow characteristics are excellent

weather can be set to crazy unrealistic (like thermals to over 100,000 feet)

it runs on pc linux and i think even mac

advantages: cross platform - compete against ai

disadvantages: extremely limited number of sceneries while condor has many hundreds maybe thousands (condor1 several hundred condor 2 more added all the time) silent wings might have 6-12

for simulators I highly recommend condor 2 especially if you fly gliders for real. its the most accurate and has the largest most active community with daily records altitude records, multiple concurrent competitions, from beginner to world class.

As I implied in the beginning, EVERY PILOT SHOULD HAVE SOME GLIDER EXPERIENCE. If you think like a glider pilot you are a safer pilot at all times.

soaring is also the ultimate green sport, as well as making you even more aware of what the airs doing around you.

I hope i have managed to make you take a 2nd look at soaring as 1 of the most intense, exciting, (or peaceful) ways to fly.