motorgliders as towplanes

Ok I'll bite.....

Turning flight is accelerated flight, so the forces acting on the glider
are "unbalanced".

Since I am a firm believer that you can't change gravity (although some
of you out there try to in your analysis), gravity remains constant. If
we keep airpseed constant then drag should not change either. So we have
to change lift in order to get acceleration.

So I say we have to change the direction of lift, inward toward the center
of the circle. (centripetal force). This should be accomplished by
rolling.

Since we have added a "Horizontal component of lift", total lift must be
increased. This normally requires additional nose up force on stick or
trim. (angle of attack) You might call this pitch, but I don't think
the actual pitch attitude changes, just the stick forces and angle of
attack.

Yawing can be conidered to be necessary, or at least correction for
adverse yaw.

But to rephrase the question,

Q) What force causes a glider to turn.
A) Lift

Cookie

Here's another one for you. Does a glider turn (normally) by (a)rolling
(b) pitching (c) yawing or (d) other?


Ian