Average OLC flown distance by glider

On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 1:56:06 PM UTC+3, Jacopo Romei wrote:
At 156 km in his database, it's beating
the ASK-21 and Grob 103, which everyone loves.

Yes Bruce.
This is the *exactly* the "coup de théâtre" I am looking for by letting everybody compare this data among gliders.

Try enjoying the comparing featu
http://www.gliderreview.com/comparin...arszawska-pw-5

Obviously that doesn't necessarily mean that ASK 21 is harder to fly far than PW 5 -- because ASK 21's average could be affected by many other factors -- but it *definitely* means that PW 5 is capable of flights *that* long, which may be unexpected for a rookie like me listening to rumors only.

I don't know why it should be unexpected! The PW5 isn't as high performance a glider as a Discus or LS4 or even a Cirrus or Libelle, obviously. But it's very comparable to things such as the formerly much-loved Ka-6, in which lots of people used to regularly fly 300+ km.

I'm a pretty average pilot, but around 2000 I was taking a club PW5 to NZ contests with a dozen other PW5s and nearly as many Ka6s and tasks of 150 - 250 km. We had a lot of fun, and most people finished most of the tasks.

Bruce,

I was just describing the reason-why of the website feature, not discussing PW-5 performance. :-)

You seem the right person to review PW-5 though! Would you share your opinions about the ship in a review at the following link? http://www.gliderreview.com/glider/p...arszawska-pw-5

On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 2:40:26 PM UTC+3, Jacopo Romei wrote:
Bruce,

I was just describing the reason-why of the website feature, not discussing PW-5 performance. :-)

You seem the right person to review PW-5 though! Would you share your opinions about the ship in a review at the following link? http://www.gliderreview.com/glider/p...arszawska-pw-5

It's all looong ago. I haven't flown one since April 2010 (two flights), and before that one flight each in 2009 and 2007. Mostly I fly the Janus (until Dec 2007) and after that the DG1000.

While checking my logbook I found this entry:

255 03/01/01 WN 4:25 A P 207km task, 3:30 on task. I won the day!

59 km/h. pretty slow.

On Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 8:41:58 PM UTC-5, DG300PI wrote:
Interesting to see these figures but wat do they actually mean?
- the high-end gliders are more often flown by high-end pilots
- what has to be taken into account is the number of gliders per type that are present in certain locations with good, average or less good gliding conditions.
For example, no one ships his/hers Ka8 to Namibia or Australia to fly distance records and you will typically find the more experienced pilots over there.

or less experienced rich ones....

or less experienced rich ones....

Still that would imply a correlation between income and that glider, which is among the main focuses of GliderReview.

Once again: solving the problem of TONS of, say, PW-5 being flown in Namibia is good for academia and thought experiments, but GliderReview is meant to cope with pragmatical retrieval of information about a bunch of market-relevant gliders.

On Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 10:32:44 AM UTC-5, Jacopo Romei wrote:
Hello everybody,

as a newbie, I often find myself wondering
- how far a specific glider can be pushed
- how far a specific glider can be pushed by *its* average pilot

The second point is very important because, as obvious as it may sound, no glider "gets there" alone and it surely must be matched by a pilot with related skills.

By the way, end-to-end, I thought that crunching & aggregating some yearly OLC data, I could find a relevant answer.

As of today, on gliderreview.com every glider is shown along with its average flight lenght in the previous year. That allows for anyone to get both information: how far is any glider usually flown and, most important, how far outside of my comfort zone any glider is.

Sure this is based on OLC-uploaded flights only, but still any statistics is based on sampling and OLC to me is a quite reliable and representative data population. In other words: crunching 14 thousands flights will be enough for me to get the idea. ;-)

Enjoy!

--
Jacopo

i think there are too many variables to draw a reliable conclusion. i am also starting to think that you'd be surprised how far a specific glider can be pushed. people often takeoff too late and land too early. daniel sahzins 1000k in a 1-26, or this ~840Km flight in a PW5 are proof that the pilot is the biggest variable and not the glider. when i was younger i thought an 15 meter 750k thermal flight originating in upstate NY was pure fantasy, but dale kramer was damn near doing it. it amounted to taking off at 10 AM and flying until 6:00.

it's interesting to see what distances different gliders are being flown, i just doing think you'll get an accurate assessment. most people will go alot shorter than whats possible, but with the right person you'd be surprised how far it IS possible to go. at contests (which account for many of the cross country flights posted to OLC) the full soaring day isn't usually used.plenty of reason why the numbers won't be accurate.

Perhaps you can show price per LD point?

i think there are too many variables to draw a reliable conclusion

That's the reason why GliderReview aggregates a few for each glider, including "fuzzy" ones like comments and editors' review.

i am also starting to think that you'd be
surprised how far a specific glider can be pushed

Well, that would be related to *maximum* distance, not to *average* distance.

Thanks ND for your feedback.
Ciao

--
Jacopo

Roel,

Perhaps you can show price per LD point?

That idea was proposed by my friend Stefano Cherchi a few weeks ago.
I am considering it since that day. We'll see!

Thank you for your comment though, it is definitely inspiring.

--
Jacopo

Le mardi 17 janvier 2017 10:32:44 UTC-5, Jacopo Romei a écritÂ*:
Hello everybody,

as a newbie, I often find myself wondering
- how far a specific glider can be pushed
- how far a specific glider can be pushed by *its* average pilot

The second point is very important because, as obvious as it may sound, no glider "gets there" alone and it surely must be matched by a pilot with related skills.

By the way, end-to-end, I thought that crunching & aggregating some yearly OLC data, I could find a relevant answer.

As of today, on gliderreview.com every glider is shown along with its average flight lenght in the previous year. That allows for anyone to get both information: how far is any glider usually flown and, most important, how far outside of my comfort zone any glider is.

Sure this is based on OLC-uploaded flights only, but still any statistics is based on sampling and OLC to me is a quite reliable and representative data population. In other words: crunching 14 thousands flights will be enough for me to get the idea. ;-)

Enjoy!

--
Jacopo

Hi
Some variable are impossible to know,control.
I post much shorter flight, and distance, now because I am 75 but still with
the same LS6. After 4.5 hours concentration is more difficult and energy
is gone. But 10 years ago 6.5 hours was easier. I still fly the same number
of flights each year.
Regards
Gilles