On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:44:36 UTC, (Michel
Talon) wrote:

: Or a Pegase of the first series, which had soft wings. This is indeed
: comfortable in gusty air.

I had great fun flying one of Brian Spreckley's Pegases is France few
years back, and this energy storage in the wing was very obvious. When
you hit a thermal you could see the tips move up, then catapult the
glider a little later.

It's also important in, for example, rowing eights. Having the boat
slightly flexible means that some of the initial thrust from each
stroke is stored in the hull, then released as the rower pull more
gently towards the end of the stroke. One reason that the early
carbon-fibre eights weren't terribly successful, and were replaced by
more flexible moulded wooden ones.

Ian


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