Buying a 1-35 pros and cons?

A little late to the party. I love flaps only approaches. My experience is highly limited to one glider, the Neidrauer NG-1, a modified BG-12/16. It has large chord large span flaps. I've never seen an HP-14 so don't know how it compares in size/effectiveness but when I did my first flights in the glider the problem was coming in short not going long. Full flaps and 55-60 mph gives a measured glide angle of 5:1 or so. How can you not like that? I do think it is important for would-be flap only pilots to read through discussions such as this one. Having some airplane time can't hurt, especially in the large flap Cessnas from days gone by. Shooting an hour of power off landings in an old 40 deg flap 150 will help you get the idea of how flaps affect the glide angle and sight picture with the comfort of a CFI next to you.

I've never seen a problem when I modulate flaps in the pattern in practically the same manner as i modulate airbrakes. However you have to remember that with each flap change there must be a corresponding pitch attitude change. Go from full to none and keep the nose pointed down and that is exactly where you will go.

Tony,

The HP-14 was built in two configurations. On one the flaps were
extended/retracted with a gear/track crank system allowing the flap setting
to be easily modulated. The other had a hydraulic jack system which made
extending the flaps at higher speeds easier; however, controlling the flap
retraction was near impossible. Thus the term "dumping the flaps." (Think
hydraulic trailer ramp jack.)

As mentioned before, Bob Kuykendall has written an article to assist in the
transition which is worth reading.
http://www.soaridaho.com/Schreder/St..._HP_flight.htm

Maybe you could Steve Leonard into letting you fly HP-14 serial number 1 so
you can learn more about its' handling characteristics . :-)

Wayne


"Tony" wrote in message
...

A little late to the party. I love flaps only approaches. My experience is
highly limited to one glider, the Neidrauer NG-1, a modified BG-12/16. It
has large chord large span flaps. I've never seen an HP-14 so don't know how
it compares in size/effectiveness but when I did my first flights in the
glider the problem was coming in short not going long. Full flaps and 55-60
mph gives a measured glide angle of 5:1 or so. How can you not like that? I
do think it is important for would-be flap only pilots to read through
discussions such as this one. Having some airplane time can't hurt,
especially in the large flap Cessnas from days gone by. Shooting an hour of
power off landings in an old 40 deg flap 150 will help you get the idea of
how flaps affect the glide angle and sight picture with the comfort of a CFI
next to you.

I've never seen a problem when I modulate flaps in the pattern in
practically the same manner as i modulate airbrakes. However you have to
remember that with each flap change there must be a corresponding pitch
attitude change. Go from full to none and keep the nose pointed down and
that is exactly where you will go.

I trasitioned to a 1-35 as a low time pilot. I remember my first flight I got confused and flew the whole tow in -2 flap setting. I survived. Fun glider. No vices.

The only thing I did not like is that the pilot sits with his head behind the leading edge of the wing root. To see laterally you have to lean forward.

Mark

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

On Saturday, March 23, 2013 4:13:28 PM UTC-4, Tim Weston wrote:
Does anyone have any inside info on the pros / cons of buying a 1-35. I am interested in learning cross country. I am mostly looking to hear from any current or former 1-35 owners.



Thanks,

Tim W

I fly a 1-35. The cockpit is too small in the the cold/wave when heavy boots and heavy clothing is needed. FYI, I am 5'10" and 170lbs. Flaps are manageable, but I prefer spoilers because if you get low with flaps and reduce the amount of flaps the first thing that will happen is that you will loose lift . When you reduce spoilers the first thing that happens is you gain lift. Which would you rather do when you get low and have to reduce your glide path control?

On Monday, March 25, 2013 4:27:37 PM UTC-4, Peter wrote:
On Saturday, March 23, 2013 4:13:28 PM UTC-4, Tim Weston wrote: Does anyone have any inside info on the pros / cons of buying a 1-35. I am interested in learning cross country. I am mostly looking to hear from any current or former 1-35 owners. Thanks, Tim W I fly a 1-35. The cockpit is too small in the the cold/wave when heavy boots and heavy clothing is needed. FYI, I am 5'10" and 170lbs. Flaps are manageable, but I prefer spoilers because if you get low with flaps and reduce the amount of flaps the first thing that will happen is that you will loose lift . When you reduce spoilers the first thing that happens is you gain lift. Which would you rather do when you get low and have to reduce your glide path control?

If you are flying a glider that uses landing flaps for glide path control, you have a large range of combinations of flap setting and angle of attack that provide the same amount of lift with a huge variation in available drag.
If flying at an appropriate pattern speed( my definition of this is not ever below flaps up stall speed until in the flare), you always have the option to raise the flaps and increase the angle of attack. This puts the pilot in the same condition as the one that closed his spoilers. Bob K rightly described the needed feed forward technique.
Given the steep approach abilities of most flapped ships, there isn't really much reason to be low enough to make huge changes in flap settings.
The 1-35 has one feature that is quite useful in that it has a flap stop that requires a positive action to raise the flaps to less than, 30 degrees if I remember correctly. This is the range where the lift changes the most(0 to 30 degrees)yet the drag rise is moderate.
I teach transitioning 1-35 pilots to put the flaps in 30 on downwind(assuming angles look right) and add flap when they stert to look high. It works quite well.
UH

On Monday, 25 March 2013 17:31:52 UTC-4, wrote:

I teach transitioning 1-35 pilots to put the flaps in 30 on downwind(assuming angles look right) and add flap when they stert to look high. It works quite well.

I own a 1-35 and have about 75 landings in it. You're right! Your advice is what it says to do in the POH. As I've posted before, people get quite confused about the poor, complex, and contradictory advice given about 1-35's. Ignoring it all and using the POH method gives the best results as you have outlined. It's simple and works very well. Using it, my first landing was one of my best, until I started trying variations.

Thanks for mentioning the issue "If flying at an appropriate pattern speed( my definition of this is not ever below flaps up stall speed until in the flare)" Stall speed is very slow with full flaps, so if you fly that slow and move the flaps to zero there is going to be a problem unless you remember to keep the airspeed up appropriately.

This has already been worked over too much but I need to cast my ballot. It was not hard to learn to use flaps thanks in part to guidance from Evan five years ago. I now have 350 hours in type and strongly endorse the view that you can reduce or “modulate” flap settings in the landing pattern. But obviously not at roundout. Putting aside that issue, the ship lands on a dime which is peace of mind for beginning XC pilots. It’s also a real floater in light air which helps you avoid the landout challenge.

Dear Tim: wondering if you ever bought a ship. 1-35C has fixed gear, simpler flap lever. Great in light conditions and I have made several 300-400+k flights in flat country in mine. I'm putting up for sale...

Tim,

I had 35 hours total glider time at the purchase of my 1-35. The flap-issue was a non-issue for me largely because of my powered plane experience. Whether or not a glider has flaps should not be an obstacle; either way, you will require training.

This is a great glider. Especially for getting into cross-country flying. It lands very short, especially during landouts.

Being metal helps when it comes to fixing those hangar rash dents you will likely get here and there. Metal mechanics are very available. This is a good glider to learning ownership.

If you don't already know, there is a 1-35 website that can answer most of your questions. My belief is that you later on won't have problems selling the glider. I now own an LS-6 and wish that I had the brain power to maintain two gliders; in which case, I would have kept the 1-35, too.

Raul Boerner