On Aug 15, 4:57*pm, Walt Connelly Walt.Connelly.
wrote:
Well about half of the posts re flaps only gliders made me feel positive
about the possibility of finding a glider with flaps only, and the other
half made me feel just the opposite. *I guess you could dump flaps on
final rather quickly if your speed was above stall for all ranges of the
flaps as they came up but the purpose of flaps is to create more lift
allowing for a lower approach speed or am I mistaken? *Apparently beyond
a certain point the flaps cease to provide lift and are only a drag
device. *It would make sense that a quick move from the drag area back
to the maximum deflection for lift could be accomplished quickly with
little problem.

I guess the best option is for a glider with both flaps and
spoilers/airbrakes but I don't think there are a lot of those out there.
Sometimes too many opinions from too many people are a bad thing.

Walt

--
Walt Connelly

Landing flaps are quite effective in many ships and really effective
in a few.
Really effective examples: HP series, Concept 70, PIK 20- all are
flaps only
In these ships, you usually don't put full flap in till you have the
field made with margin. Then, if high, just put the nose down a bit
more and down they come. Because they are so effective, there is
rarely any reason to raise them again because you are plenty high.
Flare needs to be soon enough to begin to bleed speed a bit before
going into ground effect to reduce floating down the airport.
I once landed my PIK-20 in a football field over the goal post.
Most effective: ASW-20 early before B and C. Flaps plus spoilers.
Steep approach, no speed build up , min float in flare. I landed my 20
over the goal post and stopped with lots to spare.
"Not quite like 20"- 20B and C, ASH-26, ASW-27, ASG-29. Excellent, but
go around the goal post .
Really effective- 1-35. Around the goal post
Others- The Glasflugel and SH gliders with trailing edge flap brakes
also come down quite well. One benefit is that they are intuitive to
use and easy to transition into.
There is no reason to be afraid of flaps only ship. That said, you
must get some good prep and training to learn how to do it right and
that does NOT come from RAS posts. There is a lot of bad info that is
hard to weed out.
FWIW
UH