I was showing a friend the Soaring Australia web site and he asked me a question about performance...
The quote on the page is: http://www.soaring.org.au/main/faq.php "On poor soaring days you will be restricted to within glide range of the airfield, however on good days once you are competent you can attempt recognised flights of 50, 300, 500 or 1,000 km. The straight glide performance of gliders varies immensely. A modern high performance competition glider may glide 60 km for every 1,000 feet of height! A typical club glider will easily glide 10 km for each 1,000 feet without encountering any rising air." He asked me is there really such a huge difference, and I had a quick think and calculation, and though if I would ask you guys if I am crazzy. The better gliders are 60:1. Which means in 1000 feet loss of altitude (this is of course assuming smooth air) the glider travels 60,000 feet, or roughly 10 NM or roughly 20 km. However, the quote above says that they fly 60 km for every 1000 feet. Of course if we are streeting then even my glider can do that (my longest being 80 k in a straigh line from 5000 feet). So did someone turn feet into metres by mistake and get their calculation wrong by 3 times, or have I made a mistake? Scott _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
