Marc Ramsey wrote:
Darryl Ramm wrote:
I'd go the path of least work,
kind of hard to justify worrying about state of the art TE
compensation for a Ka-6.

Last I looked, efficiently finding and centering thermals is even more
important in a Ka-6 than it might be in, say, an ASH-26E.

My experience in both those gliders is the Ka-6e doesn't need as good a
TE as the 26E, because the cruise speed is much lower. Pulling up from
65 knots isn't as demanding as pulling up from 85 knots.

Once in the thermal, the variations in speed are small and don't affect
the vario reading enough to see the difference between a fin mount or a
fuselage mount. This is particularly true because a 2 or 3 knot
variation at the 50 knot thermalling speed of the 26E is over twice the
altitude change that 2 or 3 knots produces at the Ka-6's 33 knot
thermalling speed.

And finally, my distant recollection of flying the Ka-6e is it's 5 light
wing loading (lb/sqft vs 8.5 lb/sqft) and low thermalling speed made it
easier to find/feel/sense and center thermals.

So, I'd suggest trying the very easiest thing first: a TE probe mounted
on the removable turtledeck, probably towards the rear it. If it works,
great; if not, very little effort wasted.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
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