Purists are from Pluto, Motorgliderists are from Mars - #2

"If anything, a motorglider has a performance disadvantage compared to a motorless, because the ballast choices are limited. It is operationally more complicated during a landout, as everything the "purist" must consider has to be considered, along with deploying and starting an engine. Abandoning further cross country flight has to be done earlier and higher, a disadvantage."

All that is true, and I think in a competition the motorglider therefore has a net disadvantage, and more so for a self-launcher with its higher minimum wing loading. On the other hand, for what I might call the relaxed leisure pilot, motorglider pilots at my club tend to attempt flights further away from home or in more dubious conditions than pilots of pure gliders - because for a relaxed leisure flight pilots are less keen to risk a landout far from home. I accept that there must be pilots with enthusiastic crews who are more bold, but I don't know them!

Most of the pilots at my club who now fly motorgliders were being rude about motorglider pilots 20 years ago. But virtually everyone who has bought a new glider in the last 10 years has bought it with an engine, whether internal combustion, jet or electric.

Both in my club and on the UK BGA Ladder there is a trophy for the best result in a 'non MOP' glider.

On Monday, April 12, 2021 at 4:59:35 PM UTC-5, waremark wrote:
"If anything, a motorglider has a performance disadvantage compared to a motorless, because the ballast choices are limited. It is operationally more complicated during a landout, as everything the "purist" must consider has to be considered, along with deploying and starting an engine. Abandoning further cross country flight has to be done earlier and higher, a disadvantage."
All that is true, and I think in a competition the motorglider therefore has a net disadvantage, and more so for a self-launcher with its higher minimum wing loading. On the other hand, for what I might call the relaxed leisure pilot, motorglider pilots at my club tend to attempt flights further away from home or in more dubious conditions than pilots of pure gliders - because for a relaxed leisure flight pilots are less keen to risk a landout far from home. I accept that there must be pilots with enthusiastic crews who are more bold, but I don't know them!

Most of the pilots at my club who now fly motorgliders were being rude about motorglider pilots 20 years ago. But virtually everyone who has bought a new glider in the last 10 years has bought it with an engine, whether internal combustion, jet or electric.

Both in my club and on the UK BGA Ladder there is a trophy for the best result in a 'non MOP' glider.

Just a sort of relevant anecdote: Was flying a contest at Uvalde where the task area has both flat land and mountains. One day a MAT task was called. It was almost totally blue over the flat ground but cu's were popping in the mountains. The motorgliders pretty much all went into the mountains to fly their extra turns. The non-motors stayed in the flats. Guess who had the better day.

Probably the motorgliders had a better day THAT day. But what if one
had crashed in the mountains (possibly fatally) because his engine
wouldn't start?

The engine is a double edged sword. Use it well and it will be a great
benefit to your soaring experience. Rely on it too heavily and it will
rise up and bite thine ass.

Dan
5J

On 4/12/21 7:39 PM, Wallace Berry wrote:
ust a sort of relevant anecdote: Was flying a contest at Uvalde where the task area has both flat land and mountains. One day a MAT task was called. It was almost totally blue over the flat ground but cu's were popping in the mountains. The motorgliders pretty much all went into the mountains to fly their extra turns. The non-motors stayed in the flats. Guess who had the better day.

On Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 10:45:17 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
Probably the motorgliders had a better day THAT day. But what if one
had crashed in the mountains (possibly fatally) because his engine
wouldn't start?

The engine is a double edged sword. Use it well and it will be a great
benefit to your soaring experience. Rely on it too heavily and it will
rise up and bite thine ass.

Dan
5J
On 4/12/21 7:39 PM, Wallace Berry wrote:
Just a sort of relevant anecdote: Was flying a contest at Uvalde where the task area has both flat land and mountains. One day a MAT task was called. It was almost totally blue over the flat ground but cu's were popping in the mountains. The motorgliders pretty much all went into the mountains to fly their extra turns. The non-motors stayed in the flats. Guess who had the better day.

Yes, I fully understand the risks depending on the MOP. Has happened to a number of people I know with varying consequences from complete destruction of the glider with severe personal injury, to last-minute-last-ditch ground loop landings in brushy pea patches, to normal off-field landings. My point is: In that competition situation, it was less risky for the motorgliders to go up into the hills than it was for the pure gliders. So much so that the pure gliders just didn't go there. The motorgliders gained a distinct competitive advantage. I am not a particularly serious race guy, so doesn't bother me much. I do get a bit tired of the "motorgliders have no competitive advantage in racing" refrain. Would I penalize motorgliders or banish them back to a motorglider class? Heavens, no. We are having enough problems getting contests to fill up as it is. Besides, the technological race going on between IC, electric, and jet MOP is interesting. Before I understood some of the tech problems, I even made serious inquiries into having my glider modified with electric propulsion.

Wallace Berry wrote on 4/13/2021 11:49 AM:

On Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 10:45:17 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:

Probably the motorgliders had a better day THAT day. But what if one
had crashed in the mountains (possibly fatally) because his engine
wouldn't start?

The engine is a double edged sword. Use it well and it will be a great
benefit to your soaring experience. Rely on it too heavily and it will
rise up and bite thine ass.

Dan
5J
On 4/12/21 7:39 PM, Wallace Berry wrote:

Just a sort of relevant anecdote: Was flying a contest at Uvalde where the task area has both flat land and mountains. One day a MAT task was called. It was almost totally blue over the flat ground but cu's were popping in the mountains. The motorgliders pretty much all went into the mountains to fly their extra turns. The non-motors stayed in the flats. Guess who had the better day.


Yes, I fully understand the risks depending on the MOP. Has happened to a number of people I know with varying consequences from complete destruction of the glider with severe personal injury, to last-minute-last-ditch ground loop landings in brushy pea patches, to normal off-field landings. My point is: In that competition situation, it was less risky for the motorgliders to go up into the hills than it was for the pure gliders. So much so that the pure gliders just didn't go there. The motorgliders gained a distinct competitive advantage. I am not a particularly serious race guy, so doesn't bother me much. I do get a bit tired of the "motorgliders have no competitive advantage in racing" refrain. Would I penalize motorgliders or banish them back to a motorglider class? Heavens, no. We are having enough problems getting contests to fill up as it is. Besides, the technological race going on between IC, electric, and jet MOP is interesting. Before I understood some of the tech problems, I even made serious inquiries into having my glider modified with electric propulsion.


" My point is: In that competition situation, it was less risky for the motorgliders to go up
into the hills than it was for the pure gliders."

That's an unusual situation to me, so I'd like to learn more about it. Can you tell me what
contest and what day that was? And specifically, what made it "less risky" for the powered
gliders: less safety risk, less scoring risk, less risk of a long retrieve, or something else?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

On Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 11:50:01 AM UTC-7, wrote:
My point is: In that competition situation, it was less risky for the motorgliders to go up into the hills than
it was for the pure gliders. So much so that the pure gliders just didn't go there. The motorgliders gained
a distinct competitive advantage. I am not a particularly serious race guy, so doesn't bother me much.
I do get a bit tired of the "motorgliders have no competitive advantage in racing" refrain.

You must have never flown against anyone such as some of the top 10 US racing pilots I flew with back in the 1980's - 1990's. Many would fly their ASW-20, Ventus, etc. deep into tiger country with no hope of a safe landing if no lift was found. On many occasions, I would choose that time to find a different route.

Once at Minden, I was an early starter and got as far south as some high terrain, but couldn't get high enough to clear it safely. After hanging out on a ridge for close to an hour, "the mob" showed up, all a few hundred feet below me. Off they went into the high ground. I followed because I now felt that they would either mark lift, or at least one would land somewhere without breaking their ship, marking a spot for me :-) Several landed in some tiny meadows and amazingly without damage. I completed the task!

5Z

With Cu's over the higher ground I would expect those pilots to do better. There are no mountains in the Uvalde flight area, hills.
On Monday, April 12, 2021 at 6:39:17 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Monday, April 12, 2021 at 4:59:35 PM UTC-5, waremark wrote:
"If anything, a motorglider has a performance disadvantage compared to a motorless, because the ballast choices are limited. It is operationally more complicated during a landout, as everything the "purist" must consider has to be considered, along with deploying and starting an engine. Abandoning further cross country flight has to be done earlier and higher, a disadvantage."
All that is true, and I think in a competition the motorglider therefore has a net disadvantage, and more so for a self-launcher with its higher minimum wing loading. On the other hand, for what I might call the relaxed leisure pilot, motorglider pilots at my club tend to attempt flights further away from home or in more dubious conditions than pilots of pure gliders - because for a relaxed leisure flight pilots are less keen to risk a landout far from home. I accept that there must be pilots with enthusiastic crews who are more bold, but I don't know them!

Most of the pilots at my club who now fly motorgliders were being rude about motorglider pilots 20 years ago. But virtually everyone who has bought a new glider in the last 10 years has bought it with an engine, whether internal combustion, jet or electric.

Both in my club and on the UK BGA Ladder there is a trophy for the best result in a 'non MOP' glider.
Just a sort of relevant anecdote: Was flying a contest at Uvalde where the task area has both flat land and mountains. One day a MAT task was called.. It was almost totally blue over the flat ground but cu's were popping in the mountains. The motorgliders pretty much all went into the mountains to fly their extra turns. The non-motors stayed in the flats. Guess who had the better day.

OK, yes. The "Hill Country". Beautiful place. For the purposes of this conversation, does it matter whether it's technically a mountain or a hill if landing out there means you crash and probably die?

The risk was the high chance of injury or death if the lift did not pan out . The pure gliders had no "Plan B" if they went into the hills and did not find lift. The motorgliders had a "Plan B". Yes, Plan B had risk, but less risk of landing out than the pure gliders. Isn't that a big part of the attraction of motorgliders?

This was at the Sports Nats at Uvalde a few years ago. Maybe not every motorglider went up in the hills that day, but I seem to remember that most did.. There may have been a pure glider or two that chanced the hills.

The point is: Tasking and terrain can significantly favor motorgliders. Not sure there's a situation where tasking and terrain ever favors the pure glider. Only on weak lift days do pure gliders have any potential advantage. Again, it doesn't matter very much to me from a competition standpoint. I just wish the motorglider guys would quit saying they have no competitive advantages.

Wallace Berry wrote on 4/13/2021 6:32 PM:
The risk was the high chance of injury or death if the lift did not pan out . The pure gliders had no "Plan B" if they went into the hills and did not find lift. The motorgliders had a "Plan B". Yes, Plan B had risk, but less risk of landing out than the pure gliders. Isn't that a big part of the attraction of motorgliders?

What contest was this, and when? Why are you certain the motorglider pilots were actually
risking a potentially fatal crash if their motor didn't start? Or, could it have been just a
very lengthy retrieve that they avoided if the motor did start?

Crashing if the motor does not start is not part any "plan" of the motorglider pilots I know.
Once again, the attraction of self-launching motorgliders is launching when and where the pilot
chooses, and the greater certainty of getting home if the weather is misjudged.

If the motorglider offers a real competitive advantage, the top ten pilots in National contests
should be flying almost entirely motorgliders. I'm not aware of any study showing that, but
it'd be an interesting one to do, and shouldn't take much time or effort.

Another interesting exercise would be to ask each of the top ten pilots in several contests why
are/aren't they flying a motorglider.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

On Wednesday, April 14, 2021 at 12:08:52 AM UTC-4, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Wallace Berry wrote on 4/13/2021 6:32 PM:
The risk was the high chance of injury or death if the lift did not pan out . The pure gliders had no "Plan B" if they went into the hills and did not find lift. The motorgliders had a "Plan B". Yes, Plan B had risk, but less risk of landing out than the pure gliders. Isn't that a big part of the attraction of motorgliders?
What contest was this, and when? Why are you certain the motorglider pilots were actually
risking a potentially fatal crash if their motor didn't start? Or, could it have been just a
very lengthy retrieve that they avoided if the motor did start?

Crashing if the motor does not start is not part any "plan" of the motorglider pilots I know.
Once again, the attraction of self-launching motorgliders is launching when and where the pilot
chooses, and the greater certainty of getting home if the weather is misjudged.

If the motorglider offers a real competitive advantage, the top ten pilots in National contests
should be flying almost entirely motorgliders. I'm not aware of any study showing that, but
it'd be an interesting one to do, and shouldn't take much time or effort.

Another interesting exercise would be to ask each of the top ten pilots in several contests why
are/aren't they flying a motorglider.
--
Eric, you are making progress, yes, the sustainer and the self start both compensate for misjudgment, I would consider that a pretty big advantage over a purist. The purist cannot compensate for that type of mistake, we must deal with the situation at hand and at times suffer the consequences. The purist flies with a different mindset, reality sets in real quick and making decisions on should or should not has a different price to pay.


Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1