On Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at 1:30:23 PM UTC-7, Bob Whelan wrote:
On 4/8/2015 1:28 PM, Tango Eight wrote:
Snip...

T8's hot tip for partial panel descents: get the glider dirty (i.e.
spoilers, flaps, gear). It's about 1000x easier to fly a dirty glider on
instruments than a clean one.

I lack the experience to express an informed opinion about that
paragraph-ending statement (though I'd wager a 6-pack it's correct), but will
readily second the idea of adding all the disposable drag your glider has as
being a Great Idea if/when things get visually dodgy. It's hard to get more
stable than a glider with so much drag it can't do anything but slowly and
stably fall to earth like a featherweight shuttlecock, regardless of what Joe
Pilot might attempt with the stick.

Short list of gliders which qualify follows:

Bob W.

P.S. For any offended HP drivers out there, please note I qualified things
with "slowly and *stably* fall to earth...". My HP 14 fell to earth quite
slowly and UNstably with full flaps and no hands/feet on the controls, and
never exceeded ~50 knots regardless of any of the "unusual attitudes" it found
while bouncing between the tail-high/nose-low state and "various sideways
states" as it alternated between stalled with full flaps and not stalled with
full flaps. To avoid stalling, one merely had to hold sufficient forward stick
to maintain 40 knots or so. Quite instructive...

It was probably emphasized elsewhere already in this thread, but worth emphasizing again, that many gliders have speed limits for positive flaps. In a 27 at VNE you can only be on negative flap. Not even neutral flap 3 (which I find it odd). So you really need to maintain relatively slow speed to fly really dirty in those gliders, especially with landing flaps.

Ramy