Kaido

Read, 'Advance Cross Country Soaring' by John Delafield.
Pages 81 Flaps

John gives a detailed account of the use of flaps,
which agrees with what I said, or more to the point,
there were few articles written on the correct use
of flaps in 1983 and the information from John helped
me learn how to use the flaps.

In summary he says, 'Flaps should be not be regarded
as anything other than an auxilary control to enable
the pilot to operate the wing efficiently throughout
the speed range. The are straight forward in use and
will become instinctive after only a few hours' practice.'

The method described is simple and reduces the movements
to a minimum and saves the pilot worrying what the
next setting should be.

Flaps UP to slow down. Flaps UP to accelerate, then
once the
required speed has been achieved set them to support
flight at that speed.

The only word of caution is that in large pull ups
and push overs with reduced G at the top and increased
stall speed because of the negative flap setting the
pilot may be in serious danger of spinning.



At 08:24 25 July 2003, Ipilot wrote:
Someone (I do not remember the name) wrote in last
years Soaring magazine about quite contrary
approach (not related to specific glider). The idea
was that one has to put flaps down WHILE slowing
down, not after. And the reasoning was that flap position
is not that much depending on the speed of
the glider, but on angle of attack. So if one attacks
thermals aggressively making serious pull-ups,
the increased AOA means one has to advance in flap
settings beforehand the lowering speeds. Same
applies to leaving the thermal cause then the AOA decreases.
It was told to be making huge
differences.


Regards,
Kaido, who doesn't fly flapped gliders currently.



2. Only put the flaps down when you have slowed after
your pull up into the next thermal.

This means you are accelerating and decelerating with
minimum drag and do not have to worry about the speed
settings as you speed up and slow down.