On Thursday, September 10, 2020 at 7:25:08 PM UTC-4, Tim Taylor wrote:
On Thursday, September 10, 2020 at 6:55:32 AM UTC-6, wrote:
Is this still a good reference today?
.... or is it outdated with much better information in the multitudes of books printed now?


It is still OK, others are better written by glider instructors (Wander Knauff, etc.) :

The handbook is free on-line:

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_poli...ider_handbook/

That "handbook" has so many errors that asking your students to find the errors may be the best use of it. My favorite example (from chapter 5):

"The stall speed of a glider increases with the square root of the increase in weight. ... For example, a 540-pound glider has a stalling speed of 40 knots. The pilot adds 300 pounds of water ballast making the new weight 840 pounds. The new stalling speed is approximately 57 knots (square root of 300 + 40 = 57)."

- As some famous physicist said, it's "not even wrong".

Tom Knauff says his team made 12,000 changes in turning that handbook into his version.