Very nice mid-winter threads on spinning gliders. I'll bet a lot of people will be a bit more careful this spring. Now, for a very easy way to inadvertently spin a racer from an aggressive thermal entry. Assume you are cruising between thermals at a lower than desired altitude. It's early Spring...

Today a Pawnee had a wheel bolt lose its nut and back out of the wheel enough to strike the brake caliper. I know of two other ocasions where this locked the wheel leading to a groundloop and to severe damage to the tug. In this instance, the bolt bent about 45 degrees producing a loud ticking...

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/The_M2_F1_An_Aircraft_Without_Wings_999.html

To celebrate the Spring Equinox, I hauled the Nimbus to Boulder, Colorado yesterday for the year's first flight. The 21Z ETA Blipmap forecast looked strange to say the least and I wasn't convinced that it was accurate. The blipmaps showed a strong subsidence over the mountains just west of...

I can't figure which thread to put this suggestion into, so here's a new one. Filling a cockpit with raucous warning noises is very likely to be confusing in a stressful situation - fortunately, there is another way. Instead of an electronic noisemaker, use small .wav files burned into EPROM's of...

This thought popped into my mind today. Lets say an occasion arises requiring the use of your out-of-date parachute. You leap clear of your damaged glider and pull the ripcord and, as we all expect, the 'chute works perfectly. Through dumb luck and many yanks on the risers, you manage to land on...

Apparently, there are a few people out there working with Linux for gliding applications. (Thanks for the links) Maybe it's a good thing. I keep thinking that the potential user base in this space is so small that if the PDA based apps split it, there won't be all that much profit to support a...

The discussion of wearing parachutes is an interesting one. Parachutes are cheap insurance and, when one is needed, nothing else will quite do the job. So, why aren't they universally worn? In a word, weight. The available two seaters, for the most part, have weight limitations that almost...

I have searched the archives for opinions on these flight planners/analyzers. There's not too much current data. They have progressed a lot in the last year. I need some opinions and comparisons to make a choice. Which do you use and why? Bill Daniels

I've sold my old glider and now I'm in the market for a new one. This time I'm going the single-place route. There seems to be a sweet spot in the price/performance curve when looking at the older open class gliders like the Open Cirrus, Jantar 2 (A or B), LAK 12 etc... I haven't ruled out 15...

OK, it's cold outside in Earth's northern hemisphere and here's something topical. http://www.webolutionary.com/3d/images/terraformed_mars-1.jpg What do you think the soaring possibilities would be on a terraformed Mars with an atmosphere as dense as Earth's? For one thing, your compass wouldn't...

I want to apologize to anyone I offended with my "Dog Whistle" remark about the Silent jet glider. I have long held a disparaging view of small turbines based largely on their huge cost, noise level, awful specific fuel economy and short lifespan. There's also the safety issue of a compressor...

I have been conducting some bench experiments with my Bohli taut-band bellows with capillary leak vario to determine the system time constant. The set-up is a 0.45 liter glass vacuum flask attached to the vario with .5 meter of 3mm Tygon tubing with a 1cc syringe teed into the tubing at the flask. ...

I'm fiddling with a Bohli Variometer that originally had a TE compensation diaphragm that connected to the pitot. (A Bohli uses the same taut band technology as the Sage except it's shorter and the needle is at the face of the instrument.) I have removed the compensating diaphragm and its housing...

Friends, please note a new e-mail address. (Remove the underscores) Bill Daniels

Think this might be useful? http://www.storm-hawk.com/ Bill Daniels

I placed an order by e-mail with S-H for new gas struts for my Nimbus 2C on October 2nd and received them today less than two weeks later. In 45 years of flying and owning aircraft, this was about as painless a procedure to obtain new parts for an old, out of production aircraft that I...

New flap/spoiler gas springs are on order for my Nimbus 2C. Would anyone care to give me the procedure for getting the old one out and the new one in? It looks to be a real pain to get the rear bolt out. Bill Daniels

From Aerokurier: Plastic winch cable now in series production ----------------------------- After a year of testing at AeC Landau the Lippmann Tauwerk GmbH has begun production of Dyneema as a winch-towing cable. Lippmann Tauwerk has developed the necessary braiding and coating of the "Dynatec...

Terra TRT 250D transponder, mounting frame, Ameri-King AK-350 encoder, antenna and wiring harness, removed (working) from glider 2 years ago. $995 + shipping Bill Dodson Tehachapi, California six six one 972-4417 bdodsonREMOVEANDINSERT"AT"xcor.com