Thanks for the analogy between sailing and soaring. I've sailed for years and never had a huge interest in power boats, so I absolutely understand why someone would want to learn to soar.
3B3 -- that's where I learned to fly. L23 Super Blanik. Sadly, only got a handful of hours (did solo though), and that was a long time ago. Longest flight was 1 hour and 1 minute. Safe flying!
Great video and great flight! Thanks for sharing. Back when I was gliding in west Texas, I was really interested in that Russia AC-4B. Always looked like a blast to fly.
They are a blast. Almost all of the criticism comes from people who don't fly Russias. Just about any other glider will feel ponderous in comparison to it.
Nice ! Love the take on pros and cons, after some gliding I ended up taking a career in aviation and never gone back to gliding, just because I got intent on career, but I love your take on this. Doing this with the kids is awsome.
I think there are 2 camps: ones who love to go up for a few hours, stay local or visit some nearby airports, just relax, and those who take it more seriously and do the challenge of cross countries. I really, really admire the expertise, weather knowledge, and skill of the 2nd camp, but I'm happy to be in the 1st camp :-) (actually, I'm much more often in the tow plane).
Amazing that your wingspan is only 13cm more than my paraglider ! But your glide ratio, that's just not fair! I love your analogy of the powerboat vs. sailboat, similar to free-flying vs. powered flying. Spot on.
Ha! That's the first time I heard someone being jealous of the Russia's glide ratio (since it's always compared to other gliders). Have you seen a Archaeopteryx? That's actually the smallest / lightest glider available, and it's foot launch.
You could learn to fly gliders too. This Russian plane and the Polish SZD-51 Junior are nice. Just watch how a Junior is constructed, it is very very practical. And it is a bit cheaper than other solo student pilot gliders, which is interesting for a club, but also for when you got your license and you want to buy your first plane, it is really really cheap secondhand, compared to a new performance glider. If you don't mind flying a simple plane, buying a Junior and a trailer could be fun. Do you know SZD also made a tiny glider that was used during Olympic Games, the PW-5? What I don't get is why they didn't simply say no thank you, go fly those competitions in SZD-51, why design a PW-5 when there already is a perfect plane for this? When clubs buy a PW-5, I think they'd better buy a Junior, but maybe that depends on how many newbie pilots you got.
Practical detail, there is a crack in the canopy, from the ventilation window, I do not see the end of that crack, but it is wise to drill a small hole to stop the crack from creeping any furter.
Great suggestion : it is drilled out. The vent window is a weak spot on the canopy - hence why you should never lift / close the canopy by grabbing the opening. Always reach in and open with the handle or frame.
Very cool! The cloud base is easier to picture for some people if you just says the base is the altitude at which the temperature is equal to the dew point.
The pecking of pilots….. I love soaring flight. I’ve flown/ owned GA airplanes, ultralights, logged around 30 glider flights and logged over 2000 hours in hang gliders for 52 years. The thing about many sail plane pilots that I’ve come across in all my years is when I talk about hang gliding many still brush it off with a sense of proud smugness as not real flying. Four occasions while soaring XC flight I felt the need to put down in quiet country airfields for safety reasons while following all pattern protocols with no aircraft conflict then be met with crap. It happened once at Sterling airport in Massachusetts with absolutely no gliders flying that evening. But attitudes do change after a while. In the 80’s I used to FedEx jump seat about the country to go HG and got looked at cross eyed by the pilots. Now I’ve got many retired airline pilots sharing the sky alone side me soaring hang gliders. Free Flight pilots working the atmosphere belong to the biggest Club of world.
Well, unfortunately this sort of closed minded behavior happens across all activities, and is not specific to pilots. I do find glider pilots to be, let's say quite passionate about their hobby :-)
Hmm. I have flown one. Didn't care for it. Would easily spin, not a problem but a bit annoying. I was not flying aft CG but perhaps it wasn't rigged correctly? Never wanted to fly one again after the first experience. Plus our strong Nevada thermals threw that little plane around like a toy. Yes, it was a very strong thermal day when I flew it. Thank you for the great video. (Flown 15 different glider types with 1066hrs of glider time for perspective)
@@thermalbug Based on what I read / saw, they do spin readily. I never got mine into a spin, and did coordinated stalls without dropping a wing. Indeed on a turbulent day, it does get tossed around. More of an issue / challenge on tow, especially with its sensitive controls. This particular ship was used out west, prior to me. I think it’s great for thermalling here on the east coast. I’ve only done silver distance with it, but others do gold and beyond.
@@laszlovasko perhaps a few tiny vortex generators located outboard around 75% semispan. And far aft as possible, just past thickest* point, in front of pressure recovery region. Well aft of leading edge to maintain laminar flow. (They should create just enough turbulence to maintain attached flow over a portion of ailerons). It will probably cost a few percent in drag.
could have been a good video.............. then you added awful moozak. and made it even worse by making moozak volume 1000% louder than your voice. four minutes - more than enough for me
Constructive criticism, no disrespect; lose the background noise. The subject & your narration of it is great! The addition of distracting, monotonous & annoying music ruined the vid for me.
Thanks for the feedback- I’m pretty new at this. I see peoplepointing out the music being loud while I’m talking. Trying to work out if in general people don’t want any music, or to have it really low volume. Appreciate the feedback. Wasn’t sure how to take feedback where music was referred to as “moozak” - which could indicate just a distaste of any background soundtrack.
@@laszlovasko basically, I'm against any music while a person is talking. My focus is on the words being spoken and the visual on the screen. Music during intro, outro, and portions when there only would be silence aren't too bad, but mind the volume! You can't please everybody, so listen to your audience, and do sometrial & error. Best to you ❤ PS, you are probably too young to remember Muzak, aka elevator music, or piped-in-music. PPS, i just did a search on Muzak. It started in 1938 and is still being produced but under a new name; Mood Media. There is a good wiki article on it.
I was the one who sold it :-) - this was my second to last flight in it, it was actually in May, hence the longer sleeve. I had the glider for 7 seasons, and it served us well when both my boys were also flying it. Now that they grew up, and moved away, I was only flying it maybe twice a year, hence why I sold it. Should have asked for more $, as I had a ton of interest on it.
anyone thought about a drone tow (controlled by the pilot being towed)? the drone could also find other applications, e.g. hauling skydivers to jump / drop altitudes, cargo, etc.
Might be difficult to control both the drone and the glider - but we do have various forms of self launching powered gliders (i.e. motor pops up from back of glider with propeller)
@@laszlovasko Thanks for your feedback. The drone will also be autonomous since it needs to fly back to base, and does not incur a weight penalty (unlike a stowable prop & engine).
@@ingoos Interesting: Have you seen Magpie's aerotow concept? So perhaps not only could you do the initial tow with a drone, but a drone could be summoned to "fetch" you if you need tow assistance, back to the airport environment. Or even facilitate cross country flights, while you could get drones to extend the distance, allowing you to land and take off again, etc.
@@ilikegliding It's about 34:1, so not nearly as good as a standard class 40:1 glider. Furthermore, the light weight means it doesn't penetrate well, you really need to accelerate to cut across sink, and end up loosing altitude quickly. With that said, more skillful pilots than I will do gold distances with it.
Nice flight! Gliding, besides being pure joy, is kind of an ecologically correct sport... since everything we use is what Mother Nature gives us for free, clean energy. Congratulations!
@@louispaxeco6931 true in theory, but rarely in real life. And yes, l used to fly gliders years ago, before people knew enough to feel guilty about (relatively) harmless fun. 🙂
I wouldn't really agree with it being ecological. They're made of petrochemicals resins and composites and glider pilots burn a lot of fuel driving to and from their airfields/towing the glider trailers. I'd estimate pilots at my club do an hour of driving for every hour of airtime in a year. It's green next to drag racing, but not next to chess:-)
This was filmed on the DJI Pocket 3. Mounted on the panel, so it was neat to click a button for it to swing forwards / backwards. While it worked really well in a glider, it's not so good in a motor plane (or car) - as vibration causes the view to have a jelly effect.
Hi Laszlo, my friends and I have an Aviastroitel Me-7 sometimes it's a struggle to get the wings on far enough to get the cam main pin in. Push one wing in, out comes the other. Have you any tips for rigging the glider please? Jon
The left wing's spar is in front of the right wing, so put the left wing in first, and put the pin in 1/2 way. The pin should than hold the wing in place, i.e. not allow it to come out when the other wing is being pushed in. Then when you put the right wing in and you get it close, look at the spacing around the spar, and make sure it's even. You can also feel where the wing is centered. See how I was pushing it in the video - I moved the wingtip around to feel for the least amount of force side to side / up and down, to center the spar. Then I gave it quick shove to get it in,. Finally, you pull it tight with the cam on the pin. Make sure your air brake lever is cracked open during the whole process.
Ha! Actually, it's not a funny question, when one needs to go! More sophisticated gliders do have a urinating cup / tube set up. How convenient those are given that you're in a fairly reclined position, I don't know as I've never flown one. Pilots do rush off right before a flight to the porta potty or the woods. Some people put on diapers, which must not be pleasant (for long x-country flights). Luckily I've never had an issue, but I seldom exceed 2.5 or 3 hours on my flights.
Many of us use a condom-catheter connected to a urine connection bag. Inexpensive, effective, and you don’t end up peeing on your gliders exterior, nor sitting in a wet diaper.
When I took lessons, we called them sailplanes because they produced lift and sustained flight. They weren't gliders, which can't sustain flight, they can only glide.
Absolutely correct. Also why clubs tend to be called Soaring Clubs. I should have mentioned that in the video. But the shorter “glider” term is still generally used - just check out wingsandwheels, the primary online site to sell / buy “gliders”
I live in the Wichita Ks area for most of my life and used to see Glider trailers being pulled behind vehicles all the time over 20 -30 years ago , I never see them anymore, I wonder why the hobby has fallen off? Because its usually always windy here and it used to be called Air Capitol of the World .
I'm not quite sure. General aviation (power planes) are enjoying sort of a revival, although nothing like decades past. Soaring not so much, even though soaring is not even close to near as expensive, especially if you join a club. Actually, it's a great low cost way to enjoy on a nice weekend day (lot cheaper than golf, for example). You don't need to purchase anything in a club. Later, once your licensed and you want more flexibility, you can acquire a glider (or partner up with someone). Sure the cost of the latest (or even recent) high performance gliders is high, but there's also an ample selection of used gliders that are not expensive (like this one!). Clubs do seek out new members, offer ways for youngsters to get involved, and try to get the word out. That was partially my motivation for this video as well.
@@laszlovaskoare you by chance aware of any clubs close to the central IL area? I'm currently doing PPG, n have a hangglider trike project also. But I would love to learn soaring. Thanks
The inherent problem with soaring in the US is the FAA does not recognize out landings of a glider as valid. And property laws effectively make landing out as "trespassing". There is a very long list of sailplane pilots with six figure lawsuits against them in the states.
