Average OLC flown distance by glider

On Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 8:41:58 PM UTC-5, DG300PI wrote:
Interesting to see these figures but wat do they actually mean?
- the high-end gliders are more often flown by high-end pilots
- what has to be taken into account is the number of gliders per type that are present in certain locations with good, average or less good gliding conditions.
For example, no one ships his/hers Ka8 to Namibia or Australia to fly distance records and you will typically find the more experienced pilots over there.

or less experienced rich ones....

or less experienced rich ones....

Still that would imply a correlation between income and that glider, which is among the main focuses of GliderReview.

Once again: solving the problem of TONS of, say, PW-5 being flown in Namibia is good for academia and thought experiments, but GliderReview is meant to cope with pragmatical retrieval of information about a bunch of market-relevant gliders.

Perhaps you can show price per LD point?

Roel,

Perhaps you can show price per LD point?

That idea was proposed by my friend Stefano Cherchi a few weeks ago.
I am considering it since that day. We'll see!

Thank you for your comment though, it is definitely inspiring.

--
Jacopo

On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 9:06:53 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Perhaps you can show price per LD point?

i don't think thats a relevant metric. how often do we really fly at best L/D speed? best L/D is somewhat irrelevant. If all they were focused on was raw L/D, I'm sure they could make gliders with extraodinary L/D's, but they are trying to optimize the performance over a wide range of speeds.

On Thursday, January 19, 2017 at 12:02:06 AM UTC+3, ND wrote:
On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 9:06:53 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Perhaps you can show price per LD point?

i don't think thats a relevant metric. how often do we really fly at best L/D speed? best L/D is somewhat irrelevant. If all they were focused on was raw L/D, I'm sure they could make gliders with extraodinary L/D's, but they are trying to optimize the performance over a wide range of speeds.

Don't forget the ASW12 had a 46:1 L/D in 1965!

But those guys running around in Australia at the moment and averaging up to 160 km/h (85+ knots) on task are obviously not doing a lot of flying at their 50 - 60 knot best L/D speed.

Jacopo,

Long ago (in the '70s) when the handicapping movement started (thanks Carl Herold) One of the metrics that was used was the -6kt sink speed. That is, at what airspeed did the polar have a 6KT sinkrate. If you look at the change in the polars over the last 40 years (I've been doing it a looong time, you'll see less of a best L/D change and a much greater speed where the -6 occurs. The polar's shape has been "flattening". Small tweeks in drag at the high end produce great results, while not affecting the best L/D much.. As most XC pilots know, it's the high-speed L/D that makes the difference.