gliding back to your departure airport

True on all counts...

BT

"dennis" wrote in message
k.net...
The glider has a couple of things going for it. Power planes are seldom
over
12:1 glide ratio and it is achieved at a higher speed than the glider.
This means that the power plane covers about half the THEORETICAL glide
distance of the glider. Said loudly.

The speed ratio between the wind and the aircraft is a factor. A given
wind
speed will be a higher percentage of the glider's best glide speed and
will
result in a greater advantage to it's L/D downwind compared to a power
plane
with the same wind. The wind also works to advantage for the glider's on
tow
part by decreasing the distance that it covers on climb, compared to a
power
plane at typical climb speeds.

Finally, for some ancient and illogical reason, power plane standard
procedure
is to stay on center line of the runway for climbout. It's considered bad
form
to put yourself in a safer position for a turn back to the field. The
exception is an IFR departure. They typically maintain runway heading.
Lots
of luck making a turn back under IFR.

You subtract reaction time, reconfiguration time, screw around trying to
get
the thing to run, and it is very, very unlikely that a power plane will
get
back to the runway at any time during their climb out. Unless it is a long
runway and you started from the end.




In article afjlb.63635$La.24804@fed1read02, "BTIZ"
wrote:
Most gliders can do this and the pilots train to that standard..

Departure problems below 200ft AGL, tow plane power problems.. rope
breaks
or tow hook failures.. and the idea is to land straight ahead as quickly
as
possible and get stopped.

Above 200ft AGL (which most glider/tow combinations can get to about
3000ft
after start of take off roll), if the rope breaks, tow plane says.. GET
OFF!!.. the glider pilot can pitch down for airspeed and begin a turn
back
to the departure runway.. land opposite the direction of take off and
have
enough energy to roll back to the starting point.

A nice tow pilot will allow the tow to "Drift down wind the cross wind"
on
climb out, so if something does happen the glider can turn into the wind
when returning to the runway.. turning away from the wind can push the
glider to far away (tailwind on base) and make returning to the runway
more
difficult.

This maneuver is part of the practical test standards, though most DE's
will
wait until 300ft or higher and most CFIGs will review the procedure on
BFRs.

Our "Training glider" has a L/d of 23-1. Schweizer 2-33.

BT

"Harold" wrote in message
. ..
If a small single engine plane can out-climb its engine-out glide ratio
from
take off through the top of climb point, wouldn't it follow that it can
always theoretically make it back to the departure airport in the event
of
engine failure ? Assuming straight out departure, no wind, and the
altitude
loss in the 180 turnback is offset by the runway portion you didn't
use.
If
my best glide is 85 KTAS and it loses 700 fpm at that speed, shouldn't
I
be
guaranteed I can make it back if I climb at 84 KTAS and 701 fpm ?