Jets can and do soar. Every jet (airliner) flight usually ends in a 100 mile
power off glide, often deploying spoilers just to get the thing down. The
DC-10 has an L/D of nearly 15 to 1, better than a lot of model gliders. Of
course max L/D occurs at around 220 kts (varies with weight for a given aoa),
making it difficult to turn within the diameter of thermals. However, they
soar quite well in wave lift. I've done it a number of times downwind of the
rockies. With throttles at idle, the airspeed kept increasing while
maintaining a constant altitude (35,000 ft). I could have easily converted
the airspeed increase to a good climb, but didn't want to bother getting a
clearance to a higher altitude (it also takes a lot of power to maintain
altitude when you fly through the sink area of the wave).
Ben Clerx
DC-10 "sailplane" pilot
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