Debunking Glider Spoiler Turns Causing Spin Thinking

On Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 10:41:59 AM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:
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Are you saying that the wing loading goes down in a turn because the glide ratio deteriorates?

Yes, I am. The worse the glide ratio (horizontal distance covered per vertical distance covered), the less lift the wing must generate, for any given bank angle. As L/D approaches 1:1 and glide ratio approaches something really terrible (worse than 1:1, if the aircraft is banked), the lift vector becomes less than the weight vector. Because much of the aircraft weight is being supported by the drag vector. See my table from previous post. As we start at any given bank angle, and hold that bank angle constant, and degrade the L/D ratio by increasing the drag coefficient, the flight path will end up aiming more and more steeply downward into a descending helix, with the ultimate end point being a vertical rolling dive at 0:1 L/D and 100% of the aircraft weight supported by the drag vector. (The drag coefficient must be infinite, and the airspeed must be zero, to achieve this so we never get there in real life.)

See my table from previous post.

That is incorrect. Wing loading and glide ratio, as you are using them here, are unrelated.

In steady state, unaccelerated flight, Lift = Mass and the wing loading is constant.

No-- see my table from previous post. Lift does not equal weight in unbanked gliding flight, unless L/D is infinite. Do you know how to draw the lift -drag- weight vector triangle for unbanked gliding flight? It appears in most sailplane instructional materials-- I should hope!

S