Back when I was a kid flying fixed wing, the trick my instructors and all the books told me was that when on final approach that you can tell where the plane will meet the ground by observing which point out in front of the plane is still, that is, not moving either up or down in relationship to some bug mark or imaginary reference that's clear in your own mind. Watching the video, and applying this technique, well, the still point indicated that the final approach was taking him into the drink. I couldn't read his airspeed, but, yes, it was possible he was intentionally diving and carrying a lot of speed. Or he just made dry land by riding the greater efficiencies of Ground Effect, and gliders with their light wing loading can float on ground effect better than anything else.
I find it amazing that the cockpit would be so quiet with no engine and then they fill that void with boop boop beep beep. Really need to just have a sliding bar somewhere in the cockpit for visual reference
Been trying to learn about these with the jets or propeller. Was curious if it’s for unassisted takeoff or to stay in the air longer. Appears like both, but I’m still unsure. Fill me in if you can !
There's a few variants: Primarily the jets and propeller variants are for self-sustaining once already in the air. So say your glider gets low due to a lack of thermals, then you can use the sustainer to get a bit further. The distance they can sustain flight is about 100-250 km. There's some propeller variants which are capable of doing unassisted takeoff as well, but not jets as far as I know.
