Buying a 1-35 pros and cons?

I completely agree with the comment about a flap-only glider and would advise against a 1-35 as a first glider unless you have lots of flap-only power time.

The problem is that flaps are digital, they are either on or off, unlike the analogue nature of spoilers where you can vary their position as required. With flaps, once they are on you are pretty much committed to that glide path until touch down.

The other issue with the 1-35, (based on my one flight in one) is that I found it about the most unstable glider I had ever flown. With most gliders you can take your hand of the stick and it keeps going straight. The 1-35 I flew instantly departed stable flight when I let go of the stick. After landing, I described as a glider balanced on the head of a pin.

Get an LS4 or Discus, or even a Standard Cirrus, or if you are small enough, a Libelle as your first ship.

On Saturday, March 23, 2013 7:44:42 PM UTC-4, Dave Springford wrote:
I completely agree with the comment about a flap-only glider and would advise against a 1-35 as a first glider unless you have lots of flap-only power time.



The problem is that flaps are digital, they are either on or off, unlike the analogue nature of spoilers where you can vary their position as required. With flaps, once they are on you are pretty much committed to that glide path until touch down.



Dave, that's complete BS, twice. But it illustrates nicely the single most peculiar aspect of buying a flap only ship: you get all sort and manner of unsolicited advice, much of it informed by little to no experience.

No offense, but this is a semi hot button issue. Flap transition guys need the best advice they can get. Not from guys with one flight.

-Evan Ludeman (ex HP-18, HP-14)

On Saturday, March 23, 2013 7:52:55 PM UTC-4, Evan Ludeman wrote:
On Saturday, March 23, 2013 7:44:42 PM UTC-4, Dave Springford wrote:

I completely agree with the comment about a flap-only glider and would advise against a 1-35 as a first glider unless you have lots of flap-only power time.







The problem is that flaps are digital, they are either on or off, unlike the analogue nature of spoilers where you can vary their position as required. With flaps, once they are on you are pretty much committed to that glide path until touch down.







Dave, that's complete BS, twice. But it illustrates nicely the single most peculiar aspect of buying a flap only ship: you get all sort and manner of unsolicited advice, much of it informed by little to no experience.



No offense, but this is a semi hot button issue. Flap transition guys need the best advice they can get. Not from guys with one flight.



-Evan Ludeman (ex HP-18, HP-14)

I need to clarify: what's BS is "flaps are digital" and "once they are on you are committed". I do have reservations about flap only gliders as first high performance sailplanes because in general the owner *will* spend a year learning to land it well, etc., time that might be better spent flying XC. Flaps require a lot more finesse than spoilers, or flaps plus spoilers.

My $0.02.

Evan / T8

1-35. This was my first personal ship. Serial no. 12. I had several hundred hours in her and enjoyed every damn one of them. First cross country, silver badge, gold distance, first landout, etc. I've owned other ships since then, but I had as much or more fun in the 1-35 as I have had in any of them..
My prior “high performance” experience before the 1-35 was a few hours in a Blanik L13 and Lark IS-28b (learned in a 2-33). The transition to the full flapped ship was totally uneventful. My instructor and I worked up a plan and we took the time to do it right. Home field was 5000' x 150' asphalt, so if I made errors, I had LOTs of room to work it out. I did about 15 patterns (spot landings, crosswind, etc) and got the landing down pat before I ventured out. I see now that it is very difficult for most folks to spend the time to do the groundwork before they start doing the fun stuff.
My first landing was spectacular. It felt like I was standing on my feet in the glider with my nose pointed straight down. It was a bit intimidating. Keeping focused, I sorted out the timing to round out and then sweetly touched down. At altitude I would practice dumping flaps and observe how much the ship dropped. Ground effect was another fun aspect to play with the 80 degree flaps. All good times.
Being a mostly metal ship, I could leave it tied out and fly on the spur of the moment. That was very nice. The next owner kept it on the field and flew it twice as much as I did and enjoyed it even more than I did (if that was possible).
Regarding the prior comments about the difficulty of landing of a flap ship, they are totally unfounded. If you spend the time and become intimate with the landing characteristics, the 1-35 is easy to land and fun to fly.

No offense, but this is a semi hot button issue. Flap transition guys need the best advice they can get. Not from guys with one flight.


Wow - I guess you don't know me!

On Saturday, March 23, 2013 10:01:14 PM UTC-4, Dave Springford wrote:
No offense, but this is a semi hot button issue. Flap transition guys need the best advice they can get. Not from guys with one flight.





Wow - I guess you don't know me!

We've met. You seemed to know what you were doing, and then some. But I'll call baloney on bad landing flap advice from *anyone* just because I had to deal with so damned much of it when I was trying to come to terms with my old HP. If you had even 30 good flap only (Schleicher don't count) landings, you would not have given the advise you gave above.

regards,
Evan / T8

On 3/23/2013 5:44 PM, Dave Springford wrote:
I completely agree with the comment about a flap-only glider and would
advise against a 1-35 as a first glider unless you have lots of flap-only
power time.
No problem with that advice (even though I do not agree with it, reasons - or
at least examples - why I disagree noted in another post in this same thread)...


The problem is that flaps are digital, they are either on or off, unlike
the analogue nature of spoilers where you can vary their position as
required. With flaps, once they are on you are pretty much committed to
that glide path until touch down.
Um - no offense intended, Dave - but this is utter nonsense. In my -
hydraulically-actuated, more or less "single-shot" flapped HP-14, I flew every
approach (but two) always adding flaps...but that was only because the flap
actuation system didn't lend itself to modulation, and, it had so much drag
there was no NEED to ever modulate/decrease added drag...it had roughly a
somewhere between 2:1 to 4:1 glide angle with full flaps, near as I bothered
to quantify. In my - relatively weenily flapped w. consequently considerably
shallower approach cone (7:1 it's doing good) - Zuni with a "1-35C-like flap
actuation system," approaches (particularly in vertically gnarly conditions)
were regularly flown with flap modulation, sometimes from full on to full off.
It's no big deal, though doing so does require matching (not particularly
difficult...dare I say intuitive?) pitch inputs to maintain a consistent
speed. And of course, all our approaches are flown at a consistent speed, eh?

Now, roundout time I'd agree is no time to be messing with flaps...just as
it's no time to be messing with spoilers, except maybe for the relatively more
experienced in type pilot, possibly practicing something or other...



The other issue with the 1-35, (based on my one flight in one) is that I
found it about the most unstable glider I had ever flown. With most
gliders you can take your hand of the stick and it keeps going straight.
The 1-35 I flew instantly departed stable flight when I let go of the
stick. After landing, I described as a glider balanced on the head of a
pin.

I've never flown one, but 1st-generation Standard Cirri have been similarly
'head of a pin' described to me by several active-in-them pilots when we've
compared notes, as has (e.g.) the 1-36 'Sprite'. I think my
1st-high-performance-ship, 1-35C-owning brother would generally concur with
your 'head of a pin' assessment (I seem to recall he used that very expression
in a letter to me, in fact), though he personally ultimately found it to be an
asset, particularly on weak, rattily thermalled days, since the ship 'talked
to him' so much.


Get an LS4 or Discus, or even a Standard Cirrus, or if you are small
enough, a Libelle as your first ship.

Ruh roh. There's that pesky St'd Cirrus again! See above comment...
- - - - - -

To the OP, the above exchange beautifully illustrates the unavoidable
perplexities to be found in free advice!


Bob - believes some free advice is better than others - W.

I gotta laugh at the "head of a pin" analogy. Years back I swapped my LS-6a
with a friend for his ASW-20 (B, I think - it had the stiff wings). He
described the '6 by placing his hand, palm down, on a raised indes finger
(head of a pin). I thought the '20 was horribly stiff on the ailerons.

So, I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder...

BTW, I enjoyed flying the 1-35 before buying my first ship - a Mosquito.


"Bob Whelan" wrote in message
...
On 3/23/2013 5:44 PM, Dave Springford wrote:
I completely agree with the comment about a flap-only glider and would
advise against a 1-35 as a first glider unless you have lots of flap-only
power time.
No problem with that advice (even though I do not agree with it, reasons -
or at least examples - why I disagree noted in another post in this same
thread)...


The problem is that flaps are digital, they are either on or off, unlike
the analogue nature of spoilers where you can vary their position as
required. With flaps, once they are on you are pretty much committed to
that glide path until touch down.
Um - no offense intended, Dave - but this is utter nonsense. In my -
hydraulically-actuated, more or less "single-shot" flapped HP-14, I flew
every approach (but two) always adding flaps...but that was only because
the flap actuation system didn't lend itself to modulation, and, it had so
much drag there was no NEED to ever modulate/decrease added drag...it had
roughly a somewhere between 2:1 to 4:1 glide angle with full flaps, near
as I bothered to quantify. In my - relatively weenily flapped w.
consequently considerably shallower approach cone (7:1 it's doing good) -
Zuni with a "1-35C-like flap actuation system," approaches (particularly
in vertically gnarly conditions) were regularly flown with flap
modulation, sometimes from full on to full off. It's no big deal, though
doing so does require matching (not particularly difficult...dare I say
intuitive?) pitch inputs to maintain a consistent speed. And of course,
all our approaches are flown at a consistent speed, eh?

Now, roundout time I'd agree is no time to be messing with flaps...just as
it's no time to be messing with spoilers, except maybe for the relatively
more experienced in type pilot, possibly practicing something or other...



The other issue with the 1-35, (based on my one flight in one) is that I
found it about the most unstable glider I had ever flown. With most
gliders you can take your hand of the stick and it keeps going straight.
The 1-35 I flew instantly departed stable flight when I let go of the
stick. After landing, I described as a glider balanced on the head of a
pin.

I've never flown one, but 1st-generation Standard Cirri have been
similarly 'head of a pin' described to me by several active-in-them pilots
when we've compared notes, as has (e.g.) the 1-36 'Sprite'. I think my
1st-high-performance-ship, 1-35C-owning brother would generally concur
with your 'head of a pin' assessment (I seem to recall he used that very
expression in a letter to me, in fact), though he personally ultimately
found it to be an asset, particularly on weak, rattily thermalled days,
since the ship 'talked to him' so much.


Get an LS4 or Discus, or even a Standard Cirrus, or if you are small
enough, a Libelle as your first ship.

Ruh roh. There's that pesky St'd Cirrus again! See above comment...
- - - - - -

To the OP, the above exchange beautifully illustrates the unavoidable
perplexities to be found in free advice!


Bob - believes some free advice is better than others - W.

On 3/23/2013 5:44 PM, Dave Springford wrote:
The problem is that flaps are digital, they are either on or off, unlike
the analogue nature of spoilers...

On Mar 23, 7:16 pm, Bob Whelan wrote:
Um - no offense intended, Dave - but this is utter nonsense.

Not to be dogpiling this issue, but Bob (the other Bob) is right, and
Dave is way off base here. Really, I have to wonder where ideas like
that come from.

With only a little bit of practice, it is possible and practical to
modulate flap extension through the entire range from full negative to
full positive, and I have in fact done that very thing pretty
regularly.

The key thing to understand is that using large-span flaps takes what
I call "feed forward." If you change the flap setting and then wait
for feedback from the instruments and from your senses about your
speed and angle of attack, you will end up way behind the airplane. If
you wait for feedback, you'll end up stuck in a feedback loop.
Instead, you use feed-forward. As you deploy the flaps, you apply
forward pressure on the stick at the same time. As you retract the
flaps, you apply rearward pressure. You can adjust the amount of
pressure later based on sensory input; but any pressure change in the
right direction is way better than none at all.

Even though I am developing a glider with conventional airbrakes, I
would make one with landing flaps if I thought I could sell them that
way. Flaps give the very best bang for the buck in glidepath control,
and I miss the safety and security they always afforded me.

Thanks, Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24