Final glide

Truth, and a final glide made at max l/d tells me that the guy already screwed up. The perfect final glide is one that gets you home at the proper altitude and at the max speed. He just screwed up on both counts.

On Tuesday, September 24, 2019 at 5:14:29 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Truth, and a final glide made at max l/d tells me that the guy already screwed up. The perfect final glide is one that gets you home at the proper altitude and at the max speed. He just screwed up on both counts.

Yeah, RIGHT! How often do you get the "perfect" final glide? You, sir, are the one that's screwed up!

Tom

Since I do not fly competition, making the "perfect" final glide to avoid leaving "points on the table" is not much of a concern. What does concern me is arriving below pattern altitude and suddenly being out of options with other traffic in the pattern. Sometimes there are other aircraft doing touch and goes, the glider operation has tow planes and students without proper radio skill, or worse, no radio at all. I don't feel I should annoy other airport users by just charging in and demanding priority because my final glide got me home with no margin to integrate my arrival with other pilots' intentions. Therefore, I leave myself with a safety margin. I enjoy the worm burner low passes, but I always initiate them after arriving high enough to assess the airport usage, making sure I will not conflict with other traffic. It's just being polite.

To add to what Mark said (and drift a little), I try to arrive in the
same fashion as he does.Â* I'm sometimes surprised by those with super
"radio discipline", who never say a word until someone arrives and
announces the pattern.Â* Then there's a frantic "I'm here, too!" call.Â*
Please don't forget to use the radio when you're near the field.

On 9/24/2019 7:14 PM, wrote:
Since I do not fly competition, making the "perfect" final glide to avoid leaving "points on the table" is not much of a concern. What does concern me is arriving below pattern altitude and suddenly being out of options with other traffic in the pattern. Sometimes there are other aircraft doing touch and goes, the glider operation has tow planes and students without proper radio skill, or worse, no radio at all. I don't feel I should annoy other airport users by just charging in and demanding priority because my final glide got me home with no margin to integrate my arrival with other pilots' intentions. Therefore, I leave myself with a safety margin. I enjoy the worm burner low passes, but I always initiate them after arriving high enough to assess the airport usage, making sure I will not conflict with other traffic. It's just being polite.

--
Dan, 5J

lol once again you just don't seem to be able to read what someone says without "reinterpreting" the words.

I DID NOT say that I perform the "perfect" final glide. I have never performed the perfect final glide but there are those who have. And they are carrying energy AND hitting the exact altitude they were aiming at arriving at.

wrote on 9/24/2019 7:07 PM:
lol once again you just don't seem to be able to read what someone says without "reinterpreting" the words.

I DID NOT say that I perform the "perfect" final glide. I have never performed the perfect final glide but there are those who have. And they are carrying energy AND hitting the exact altitude they were aiming at arriving at.

I rarely did perfect final glide when I was flying contests; mostly, I flew too
slowly at the beginning of the glide, and too fast at the end it, trying to get
down. But it was fun trying.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

I hear ya there Eric. Flying a low performance bird, I end up many times at the opposite end of the specrum where I start out great-guns, pretending I am Wally Scott in his asw12 at Marfa and then end up saying..."Oh ****...I better slow down". LOLo

On Tuesday, September 24, 2019 at 8:14:29 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Truth, and a final glide made at max l/d tells me that the guy already screwed up. The perfect final glide is one that gets you home at the proper altitude and at the max speed. He just screwed up on both counts.

The "perfect" final glide has the pilot crossing the finish at his selected height and at at the same speed as the average for the flight.
UH

Uncl, that is absolutely correct and what I was trying to express. The "perfect" flight would be one of relatively constant avg speed with little difference between normal task cruise avg speed and the final glide speed.

We all know however that that does'nt happen. Most of us do the best we can till we think we have our final glide in hand then modify our speed as we head on in depending on whats happening with our altitude.

On a related question, I wonder how many folks here could calculate and perform a successful/efficient final glide without their handy dandy flight computers?

On Wednesday, September 25, 2019 at 9:55:44 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Uncl, that is absolutely correct and what I was trying to express. The "perfect" flight would be one of relatively constant avg speed with little difference between normal task cruise avg speed and the final glide speed.

We all know however that that does'nt happen. Most of us do the best we can till we think we have our final glide in hand then modify our speed as we head on in depending on whats happening with our altitude.

On a related question, I wonder how many folks here could calculate and perform a successful/efficient final glide without their handy dandy flight computers?

200' per mile plus 1000', and you get home, even in an HP-18 :-). Back in the day an LNav was 20% of the cost of my glider and GPS wasn't even a thing yet. I had circles drawn on a map and eyeballs to check position. Worked every time, wasn't so hard.

T8