Hi Marc,

Your DG-600 had flaperons, as does my Apis...............they go down
only 12 degrees, great for thermalling, but not so great for steep
approaches. So when we are talking about flapped gliders, do gliders
with un-mixed flaperons count when the topic of steep approaches is
discussed?

Cheers,
Brad


On Apr 17, 7:08*pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
g l i d e r s t u d wrote:

I am not convinced that a flapped glider will land in a much smaller
field than non flapped glider. I owned a Discus2, and I landed it
out...more times than I would like to discuss in this forum. I am not
going to go into field landing techniques, but I could land very low
energy, nose high, and stop in amazingly short fields, without hitting
the nose on the ground. When taking the glider to the hanger I would
touchdown before the beginning of the hanger and pull around the
corner. total rolling distance is under 130ft in light wind
conditions. How many times do you pick a field with that little
distance? I cleaned my brake regularly to keep it in good working
order.

In my experience, the big advantage of certain flapped gliders (those
with 40+ degree landing position, or incorporating trailing edge dive
brakes like the Ventus A/B) isn't the reduction in stopping distance.
It's the fact that I can make very steep approaches into short
obstructed fields without a significant increase in airspeed. *This
allows taking full advantage of whatever stopping distance is available.
* Non-flapped gliders require a shallower approach, which is a problem
if there are wires, trees, or a hillside in the way...

Marc