On Monday, March 25, 2013 4:27:37 PM UTC-4, Peter wrote:
On Saturday, March 23, 2013 4:13:28 PM UTC-4, Tim Weston wrote: Does anyone have any inside info on the pros / cons of buying a 1-35. I am interested in learning cross country. I am mostly looking to hear from any current or former 1-35 owners. Thanks, Tim W I fly a 1-35. The cockpit is too small in the the cold/wave when heavy boots and heavy clothing is needed. FYI, I am 5'10" and 170lbs. Flaps are manageable, but I prefer spoilers because if you get low with flaps and reduce the amount of flaps the first thing that will happen is that you will loose lift . When you reduce spoilers the first thing that happens is you gain lift. Which would you rather do when you get low and have to reduce your glide path control?

If you are flying a glider that uses landing flaps for glide path control, you have a large range of combinations of flap setting and angle of attack that provide the same amount of lift with a huge variation in available drag.
If flying at an appropriate pattern speed( my definition of this is not ever below flaps up stall speed until in the flare), you always have the option to raise the flaps and increase the angle of attack. This puts the pilot in the same condition as the one that closed his spoilers. Bob K rightly described the needed feed forward technique.
Given the steep approach abilities of most flapped ships, there isn't really much reason to be low enough to make huge changes in flap settings.
The 1-35 has one feature that is quite useful in that it has a flap stop that requires a positive action to raise the flaps to less than, 30 degrees if I remember correctly. This is the range where the lift changes the most(0 to 30 degrees)yet the drag rise is moderate.
I teach transitioning 1-35 pilots to put the flaps in 30 on downwind(assuming angles look right) and add flap when they stert to look high. It works quite well.
UH