Thermals are thermals, some are bigger than others. What you fly and when,
where and how you fly are determined by what you want to do. If you want to
fly high, far and fast, you need a big, heavy glider - and a place to fly it
where big thermals live - like the high deserts of North America.

If all you want to do is play around the gliderport, then any glider will
do.

An excellent pilot like Gary Osoba can so wonderful things in any glider.

I once did Silver Distance at altitudes under 500 feet AGL in a 1-26. It
took me five hours. I don't ever want to do that again. (I really wanted
that Silver C)

I'm sure these ultralight gliders are wonderful machines but they are aimed
at something I don't want to do anymore. Very low altitude (Under 300')
dynamic soaring works - I've done it in several gliders. Just glide down
wind and as you get lower, chandelle back up into the higher wind speeds to
regain energy. Fine, if you are over a dry lake, want to go downwind and
make no mistakes - I'm not about to do that out of range of a landing spot.

The "Mini-glider" idea has been bubbling just under the surface for as long
as I have been around soaring. I remember Irv Prue's 215 and others like it
that were built in the 1950's. Oh sure, today they can be built lighter and
smoother out of advanced composites - but so can big gliders. Both benefit
about as much.

I expect that ultralight sailplanes will succeed but I don't see them as a
paradigm shift in soaring. It wouldn't surprise me if we eventually find
that we are kidding ourselves about microlift.

Ask yourself this; if you had dumped ballast to get home in weak conditions,
would you also trade your 20 meter wing for a 12 meter at the same time? I
doubt it.

Bill Daniels

"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
...
Bill Daniels wrote:
Reading Morelli's paper made me think of the times that I thermalled
away
from 2 - 300 feet in a 1300 pound glider. (Now, I don't do this often -
just when there is a landing spot handy as when flying over a dry lake.)
I've done it in a TG-3, 2-32, Lark and a Nimbus - not exactly ultralight
gliders. The point is that it doesn't take a Sparrowhawk to do it.

You weren't doing it! Those were actual thermals, not the microlift that
Morelli was talking about.

And, the SparrowHawk is not the kind of glider to use what he is talking
about, but the LightHawk is (5 pound wing loading vs 2.5 pounds).

(I'm
sure it's EASIER in an ultralight glider though...)

THe point seemed to be it's _only_ possible in one. We're talking Carbon
Dragon here.


Thermalling away from low altitude is not something that a glider pilot
should look to do - in fact it's probably the result of a mistake and
means
wasting a lot of time that would be better spent working the best
thermals
and running at high altitude. It's better than landing in a crop,
however.

"Low" is relative to the glider's handling. Take another look at the
comments on the Dragon, such as stall recovery with a 25 foot loss of
altitude. Using altitudes under 500' AGL isn't the result of a mistake,
it's a chosen operating range.


It's also true that microlift starts much earlier than the main thermal
day
and lasts later. Back when I started cross country in a 1-26, I tended
to
start too early and suffered the consequences. I wasted a lot of
personal
energy just trying to stay aloft until the big thermals started. Later,
I
learned to wait until I could make a good start and expend my personal
energy reserves on course. Late in the day is not a good time to be
thermaling at 300 feet. You're tired and likely to make a fatal
mistake.

In a Ventus, yes; Carbon Dragon, different story. Did you read the part
about "microlandings"?

Somehow, I think we have always known about microlift but it just didn't
fit
the objectives of flying far and fast.

I think hardly any of us don't know what it is. It's not just lift down
low. Next chance you get, attend a talk by Gary Osoba.

Microlift probably looks a lot
better if you live and fly under a 2000 foot inversion with 1 knot
thermals.
If you fly at 10-12 pound wing loading in 15 knot thermals at 18000
feet,
it's superfluous.

We don't do that kind of extreme soaring here in the state of Washington
(or most places I've flown). I suspect there are many days here when
microlift soaring would be a lot fun, in the right glider. These are the
days when it'd be worthless to rig my 18 meter, 8 pound wing loading
glider.

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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA