Average OLC flown distance by glider

Some variable are impossible to know,control.

You are referring to an inherent characteristic of mean values, which is affecting the interpretation of *any* mean ever calculated.

As long as I don't label that value something like "The Only Truth About This Glider" it is still fair enough that's just another meaningful fuzzy datum among TONS of other fuzzy ones: reviews, opinions, rumors and, it shows, even stall speed! :-)

Thanks for your feedback Gilles and enjoy your LS6!

On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 5:09:14 PM UTC+3, Jacopo Romei wrote:
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.

Maximum can be an untypical outlier.

75th percentile, or 90th percentile would be interesting, assuming there are enough flights. (and the corresponding 25th or 10% percentile)

On Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 3:32:44 PM UTC, 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

We used to say in the 70's, tongue in cheek, "if you don't have talent you can buy wingspan or practice, practice", practice". Still hold true?

son_of_flubber wrote:

I'm eager to see what the most successful pilots has done in one of the most reviled gliders (PW-5).


On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 11:47:53 PM UTC+13, Jacopo Romei wrote:

:-D I am eager too, but still GliderReview won't be covering all the possible data permutations about a glider, because its aim is *not* to be the next (and overlapping) "Glidopedia" but a tool to help choosing a glider to buy.

son_of_flubber replies:

So how do I export to a CSV spreadsheet the OLC data that you've boiled down?

On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 9:06:53 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Perhaps you can show price per LD point?

i don't think thats a relevant metric. how often do we really fly at best L/D speed? best L/D is somewhat irrelevant. If all they were focused on was raw L/D, I'm sure they could make gliders with extraodinary L/D's, but they are trying to optimize the performance over a wide range of speeds.

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. ;-)
Jacopo

Thanks for adding this. I would suggest that it would be good to be fully transparent and list your sources for the data. It might also be good to also list longest flight next to average, interesting trivia and it adds more information. Content is king, more info will drive more traffic to your site.

On Thursday, January 19, 2017 at 12:02:06 AM UTC+3, ND wrote:
On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 9:06:53 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Perhaps you can show price per LD point?

i don't think thats a relevant metric. how often do we really fly at best L/D speed? best L/D is somewhat irrelevant. If all they were focused on was raw L/D, I'm sure they could make gliders with extraodinary L/D's, but they are trying to optimize the performance over a wide range of speeds.

Don't forget the ASW12 had a 46:1 L/D in 1965!

But those guys running around in Australia at the moment and averaging up to 160 km/h (85+ knots) on task are obviously not doing a lot of flying at their 50 - 60 knot best L/D speed.

Jacopo,

Long ago (in the '70s) when the handicapping movement started (thanks Carl Herold) One of the metrics that was used was the -6kt sink speed. That is, at what airspeed did the polar have a 6KT sinkrate. If you look at the change in the polars over the last 40 years (I've been doing it a looong time, you'll see less of a best L/D change and a much greater speed where the -6 occurs. The polar's shape has been "flattening". Small tweeks in drag at the high end produce great results, while not affecting the best L/D much.. As most XC pilots know, it's the high-speed L/D that makes the difference.

I dunno. Booming thermals, high cloudbase -- you could probably do 1000km in a PW5 in Namibia if you just took one there.

Arizona is not Namibia, but we do have some spectacular thermal soaring, often with high cloud base. One of our members, Mike Parker, flew a World Record distance in a PW5 of 626 km here about ten years ago. Not sure about 1000 km, but 850 km looks doable.

Mike

Thanks for adding this.

You welcome. Enjoy! :-)

it would be good to be fully transparent
and list your sources for the data.

Source is cited and weblinked already, driving the user to the OLC source report.