Final glide

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.

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.

Le dimanche 22 septembre 2019 07:48:02 UTC-4, s6 a écritÂ*:
I can use my Oudie or my Clearnav vario for final glide.
Lately my CNv final glide is 400 feet lower than my Oudie.
The Oudie is right. All the setting are the same.
I cant correct the CNv.
Any idea from other CNv user?
Gilles

I fly at a busy and some time very busy airfield, so 1000 feet is my arrival height. Still stuck with a faulty CNv!!!
Gilles

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

At 23:02 24 September 2019, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 15:30:42 -0700, waremark wrote:

And then you land out before arriving at the airfield! I cannot
understand why people ever set finish rings at a height which
isn't sufficient to ensure a comfortable arrival at the airfield.

Looks reasonable to me: just set a small finish ring, say with a
radius equal to the distance from the airfield TP to the high key point
for the run being used on that day and ring height to what the
destructors like as high key height. That should be pretty close to
putting you at the start of what amounts to a text-book approach.


Mark,

If a Competition Director is setting a finish ring too low, have a word
with them. And also remember that you are PIC, not the CD. If you
need more height to land safely because of a stronger head wind,
weaker tail wind, pressure drop, bugs, rain or general nervousness,
the finish ring does not constrain you from crossing it above the
height set by the CD. For a given ring size, the CD will re-assess the
minimum height daily based on the minimum performance of gliders
competing and the conditions.

Martin,

See the BGA and IGC competition rules to understand properly what
a finish ring is about.

BGA:

A ring of specified radius (normally, but not exceeding, 3km) around
the finish point encompassing the contest site and the landing
circuits.

When a Finish Ring is specified, a minimum altitude related to glider
performance of the lowest performance glider in task group, terrain
and obstructions should be set. Unless there are specific
obstructions, the minimum altitude should be set to allow gliders to
just pass over the ring on a normal final for direct landing in the
expected prevailing wind.

For both the finish Line and Finish Ring, a viable direct landing
option must be available to allow finishers to land ahead without
turning after crossing the line or ring. A Control point should be
utilised as necessary to ensure compliance.

IGC:

A circle of specified radius (minimum 3 km) around the Finish Point
encompassing the contest site and the landing circuits.

Finish Ring is to be regarded as the preferred finish procedure as it
allows each pilot to slow down and concentrate on the landing
procedures and other sailplanes prior to landing.

Organisers are encouraged to use a Final Turn Point to align the
sailplanes with the desired direction of finishing.


You can download some logger files from the competitions at
Lasham to see how it works in practice.

MC

On Tuesday, September 24, 2019 at 10:07:43 PM UTC-4, s6 wrote:
Le dimanche 22 septembre 2019 07:48:02 UTC-4, s6 a écritÂ*:
I can use my Oudie or my Clearnav vario for final glide.
Lately my CNv final glide is 400 feet lower than my Oudie.
The Oudie is right. All the setting are the same.
I cant correct the CNv.
Any idea from other CNv user?
Gilles

I fly at a busy and some time very busy airfield, so 1000 feet is my arrival height. Still stuck with a faulty CNv!!!
Gilles

If/when you get serious about figuring this out, you will be doing one of calling Rex, emailing me or providing more information on the ClearNav forum (which I monitor).

Evan Ludeman

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

On Wed, 25 Sep 2019 10:49:26 +0000, Mike Clarke wrote:

Martin,

See the BGA and IGC competition rules to understand properly what a
finish ring is about.

My suggestion was for a way to use a finishing circle as the minimum
arrival height for a non-competition, e.g. BGA Ladder, xc flight, NOT
anything to do with a competition task.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

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?