NO. This is thoroughly misleading.

HISTORICAL.

When the first gliders with good (for the day) performance were built,
it was found that the good performance made them difficult to land.

So they were fitted with spoilers as a landing aid.

Then pilots started to cloud fly, and some lost control in cloud
and overspeeded and overstressed their gliders, which broke up.

This was countered by developing and fitting speed-limiting airbrakes
(DFS, e.g. Weihe and Slingsby Sky, and Schempp-Hirth). These were intended
to be speed limiting in a true vertical dive.

In the U.K. it was a requirement that the glider was test flown to prove
that at max. all up weight in a vertical dive Vne was not exceeded,
I understand that the Slingsby Skylark series all passed this test.

Note that max. manoeuvring and rough air speeds WOULD be exceeded.

Later, it was found that with higher wing loadings, thinner wing sections
and higher aspect ratios it became practically impossible to fit true speed
limiting brakes (in the sense that Vne would not be exceeded in a true
vertical dive at max. a.u.w.). The first U.K. built gliders for which this
applied were, I believe, some at least of the Slingsby Dart series.

Also, if the rules were relaxed life would become a lot easier for the
designer, because it would save weight and cost. So the rules were
relaxed, and "Speed limiting" came to mean "In a dive at X degrees", usually
I understand of 45 degrees.

TODAY

Most gliders today, including I believe all those built in Europe, are
designed to JAR 22.

See:
Joint Aviation Authorities, Europe. http://www.jaa.nl/ ,
JARs – Section 1 – JAR-22 http://www.jaa.nl/section1/jars/445499.pdf .

The relevant clause is:

"JAR 22.73 Descent, high speed

"It must be shown that the sailplane with the airbrakes extended, will not
exceed VNE in a dive at an angle to the horizon of:

"(a) 45° when the sailplane is approved for cloud flying and/or aerobatics
when certificated in the Aerobatic or Utility Category;

"(b) 30° in other cases.

"[Ch. 5, 28.10.95]"

Some modern gliders, including some being built today, probably still have
true speed limiting brakes by the strict old definition given above; my
guess is that these would all be gliders with trailing edge brakes or
braking flaps such as the early Pik 20; but this would not necessarily be
true for all gliders with such brakes.

Some gliders were built with tailchutes, either in an attempt to comply with
the old strict requirement, or because it was necessary if they were to
comply with the relaxed rule. I have always understood that the Janus was
fitted with a tailchute to be speed limiting in a 45 degree dive at max.
a.u.w. with full water ballast.

At what dive angle would a Duo-Discus with full brakes go through Vne?
I would be astonished if this is more than 45 degrees, it may very well be
30 degrees.

So if in a spin recovery, or for any other reason, you are diving at a very
steep angle your air-brakes are unlikely to save you from exceeding Vne.
I am sure they won't in the Nimbus 3/4 series; it was not a requirement for
certification.

W.J. (Bill) Dean (U.K.).
Remove "ic" to reply.


"Arnold Pieper" wrote in message
. com...

John,

The airbrakes were designed not only to be used for approach and landing,
but also to avoid reaching VNE.

Look at your glider's POH and check what is the maximum speed to deploy
the airbrakes, and what becomes the VNE with them deployed.

In most modern design gliders, the airbrakes can be deployed up to VNE,
and they will prevent the glider from reaching VNE when fully opened.

The airbrakes are designed for this purpose.

Once the airbrakes are opened and will prevent you from going over VNE,
there's no need to pull at anything even close to the design limit G.

Spin training therefore, is the best way to ease this fear and learn how
to pull without overstressing the airframe.

AP


"John Galloway" wrote in message
...

Through the contributions to the avoiding VNE thread
runs the theme of the difficulty of avoiding overspeeding
and/or overstressing some modern designs in accidental
spin recovery. This is made more difficult than in
older composite gliders because they had a little more
drag and a little more (fortuitous) margin in the g
limits.

Is it not blindingly obvious that there is a need for
an emergency drag device that does not reduce the G
limits of gliders? Clearly if we all handled the recovery
from inadvertent spins etc perfectly all would be well
but equally clearly that does not always happen and
it is a shame to lose pilots in this situation.

As the Phoebus pilot pointed out a tail chute is ideal
for this - providing that it can be made to actuate
and jettison reliably. (I found the design used on
the Kestrel particularly good and I never once had
a failure for landing use.) On the other hand they
are expensive and inconvenient to replace and there
are several ways that they can fail.

So can anyone think of a better idea than a chute?
The best I can come up with is some sort of flush
fitted rectangular-with the-long-edge-horizontal rear
hinged airbrakes (like old fashioned automobile suicide
doors) located on the fuselage sides somewhere in the
region below or below/behind the wings. If they opened
to about 45 degrees with a spring actuator (and limited
by sliding metal stays that hinge/attach to the front
of the panel and whose inner ends slid along in runners)
then they would provide a lot of drag without any deep
internal mechanism (such as wing airbrakes have).
Once they have done their job the rear end of the brakes
could be released by a spring loaded mechanism similar
to the front end so that the brakes would then instantly
spring to as position set out from and parallel to
the fuselage so that there would be very little drag
- only that provided by the stays at both ends and
the brake panels edge on to the wind. That configuration
would be good enough to fly home with. It would only
be possible to reset these brakes on the ground and
they would not replace conventional wing airbrakes
for approach control - although they could have a secondary
use for emergency approach control.

I am envisaging something the could be included in
new designs although there does not seem to be any
obvious reason why such a device could not be retrofitted
as a fairly major modification. The contours of the
brake panels would be specific to the individual fuselage
type but the mechanism could be generic. The assembly
would be fairly shallow and complete within itself
apart from e.g. a cable release attachment.

I am not advocating a technical solution to this problem
in place of spin recovery practice but I do think that
there must be something that the combined intellects
of the gliding community can come up with other than
observing that if we get into that particular overspeeding/steep
attitude condition we are stuffed.

Anyone got any simpler or better ideas? I am definitely
not an engineer.

John Galloway