On Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 8:09:38 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 5:56:54 PM UTC-7, Nicholas Kennedy wrote:
On many German gliders on the ASI is a yellow triangle.
This Yellow Triangle on my ASw 20 and my LS3a is the factory recommended approach airspeed. This speed is 49 knots.
This has bothered me for a long time now, I think the factory did alot of pilots a disservice by putting this, to me anyway, very low number on there.
On both the above gliders, the max speed, normal landing flap flaps down, is 86 knots.
About 15 years ago my Gold Seal flight instructor Bob Faris, CX ,indicated to me in his LS3 he planned on a much higher speed in the pattern, like 70 to as high as 80 knots depending on conditions. I followed suit ever since.
I read in Soaring magazine frequently pilots stating that their in the pattern around 50 knots, this makes the hair on the back of my head stand on end! There is no margin for error at these low speeds. No reserve energy at all.

Stalling and spinning in the pattern has been going on forever, generally resulting in a awful crash.

I think we should all come up with a much higher speed in the pattern, and trim for and hold that speed until about 20' off the ground, this could eliminate alot of accidents IMHO.

I know all about the theory of adding half the windspeed and all of the gust factor, never the less Airspeed is everything! As a group we have to do better in this important phase of flight.
What do you Glider Gods think?
Nick
T

In my experience, the minimum approach speeds given in the POH and labelled with the yellow triangle are pretty spot on where they need to be. My ASW-20B (48 kts) was perfect. My ASW-27 (54 kts) could be 50-52. Not really a big deal. These are recommended minimums. Like any other glider pilot I have had occasion to fly much faster approaches, appropriate to conditions.. Best practices are scenario dependent.

I typically fly 65 in the pattern in a glass ship (unless I need to loiter), I choose whatever speed I need to for my approach. In light conditions, it's usually right on the yellow triangle. I fly in the land of small-ish agricultural fields. It just makes sense to be good at this.

If you want to assess your margin, put the ship in landing configuration at altitude and do a slow deceleration to full stall. You might be surprised..

T8