Short Wings Gliders

when the chinese start building them
they will sell like candies!!!

No......let's make them in the U.S.

Get this economy going again, even tho it would represent a drop in
the bucket.

I subscribe to a few Composites trade magazines and it is amazing the
progress that is being made in the U.S. composites industry. This
country is a leader in composites technology.

Once you realize you're not going to get rich building gliders, but in
doing so you provide a product that can be purchased by economically
similar folks, it's a good thing.

Brad

Why not just make a one design, mass produced 15m glider (preferably with
optional plug in 18m tips). Needn't be all that much more expensive and
would actually give some performance, so people would buy them as long as
they looked like a sailplane.

The problem with the PW5 is that people are embarrased to fly something
that looks like a baby buggy with wings and a tailplane attached.

There is no substitute for span (TINFOS)...!

Derek Copeland

At 16:38 28 January 2009, Brad wrote:

when the chinese start building them
they will sell like candies!!!

No......let's make them in the U.S.

Get this economy going again, even tho it would represent a drop in
the bucket.

I subscribe to a few Composites trade magazines and it is amazing the
progress that is being made in the U.S. composites industry. This
country is a leader in composites technology.

Once you realize you're not going to get rich building gliders, but in
doing so you provide a product that can be purchased by economically
similar folks, it's a good thing.

Brad

There is no substitute for span (TINFOS)...!


There is no substitute for getting your acronyms correct (TINSFGYAC)

At 16:07 28 January 2009, Surfer! wrote:
In message , Dan Silent writes

going straight is boring........... particularly when high!

It is? I loved flying along at 3,000' agl under a cloud street at 80
knots without going down. Ditto flying along a wave bar.
--
Surfer!
Email to: ramwater at uk2 dot net


I loved flying along at 3,000' agl under a cloud street at 80
knots without going down.

me too...............
particularly on a november 18 in Kebec with a little snow on the
gound.............
and then I was expelled from the club!!!!
Maybe because I had to much fun!!!

I mentioned this as "dolphining"
very very exiting!!!!

Surfer! wrote:
Ditto flying along a wave bar.

How high?

At 16:34 28 January 2009, Bob Kuykendall wrote:

Short Wings Gliders:

much less expensive to tow

In theory, yes. In practice, this hasn't been the case yet.


Certainly not in North America!
But in France sometime they charge tows by the minutes and not by the
feet............
Then it makes a big difference!

PS: always very very interesting to read your writing......
looking forward to see the HP24 flying soon!!!














Daniel Scopel
Silent 2 Targa
C-GODY serial 2027
Volez souvent et soyez prudent.
http://pages. videotron. com/dscopel/

At 16:07 28 January 2009, Surfer! wrote:
In message , Dan Silent writes

going straight is boring........... particularly when high!

It is? I loved flying along at 3,000' agl under a cloud street at 80
knots without going down. Ditto flying along a wave bar.
--
Surfer!
Email to: ramwater at uk2 dot net


I loved flying along at 3,000' agl under a cloud street at 80
knots without going down.

me too...............
particularly on a november 18 in Kebec with a little snow on the
gound.............
and then I was expelled from the club!!!!
Maybe because I had to much fun!!!

I mentioned this as "dolphining"
very very exiting!!!!

Surfer! wrote:
Ditto flying along a wave bar.

How high?

On Jan 28, 9:30*am, Derek Copeland wrote:

Why not just make a one design, mass produced 15m glider (preferably with
optional plug in 18m tips)...

Root bending moment scales something like exponentially with span,
regardless of whether the span is part of the orignial wing or added
later. So if you want to add 3m of span, you'd better design the wing
structure for it from the get-go.

We've already seen that even in what passes for mass production in the
glider world that the per-unit cost and price of a 15m ship are great
enough to severely limit the potential market, driving down production
rates and driving up per-unit costs. This is driven to some degree by
the complexity of the aircraft and the materials that go into it. It
is driven by a greater degree by the cost of the tooling, the amount
of floor space and volume it occupies, and by business expenses
relating to maintaining, heating, and lighting commensurate shop
space, and by wages and other labor costs. Big gliders require big
tools, and big tools require big shops, and the bigness seems to scale
with something like the square or the cube of the span.

The only thing I'm bringing to the party with my own 15m/18m design is
to keep overhead down to the barest of minimums and to offload a bunch
of the more labor intensive tasks of assembly, fitting, and finishing
to individual kit builders. The RV series of homebuilt airplanes
suggests that there is a great deal of manufacturing capacity
available in that market.

My interest in smaller gliders is chiefly in that they would fit into
smaller shops and smaller garages, opening up more potential market
for kit sailplanes. I also think that the potential kit market might
be more receptive to simplifications such as 90-degree landing flaps
instead of airbrakes as we saw with the Schreder HP kits and the
Monerai.

Thanks, Bob K.

At 16:34 28 January 2009, Bob Kuykendall wrote:

with new materials, new technologies, much lower prices
and new regulations wingspan of 13.5 metres or less
could take off in great number

Yup, could be, so long as it's regarded favorably among
the youthful.
Maybe we can spin it as an extreme sport.

It is an extreme sport, at least in Kanada.
Gliding is defined as such by insurance companies.....
Up here gliding and flying are two different things.
And you get no coverage for gliding.
Tell the kids................ they will line up to try!


light motorgliders are now a big success............
over 300 sinuses sold, a new trend?

Among those with $75K of discretionary funds, definitely.

With $75K you'll get one wing only and no horizontal stab!
unless usd and eur will exchange at par.
But the Sinus flies so well with two wings that maybe
only one is sufficient..................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd2GT...e=channel_page


Daniel Scopel
Silent 2 Targa
C-GODY serial 2027
Volez souvent et soyez prudent.
http://pages. videotron. com/dscopel/

Chris Rollings wrote:
How many gliders with a wingspan of 13.5 metres or less have enjoyed a
production run of over 1000? ...over 500? Ask yourself why?

That's a hard question to answer, but there are several factors.

An important one is the used market. A new glider must compete with used
ones. If the number of pilots is not increasing, the price of used,
higher performance gliders will be close enough to reduce the market for
the new but lower performance glider. If the sport were growing well,
there would be plenty of room for the new, lower span, cheaper glider in
the market.

Another factor is the competition classes. Once instituted, they
encourage (even force) the manufacturers to build to that standard,
which has been a wing span limit for many decades. I am pleased to see
the Apis and Silent deviate from these "class conscious" wing spans, but
competition classes still drive a large portion of the market.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

* Updated! "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* New Jan '08 - sections on Mode S, TPAS, ADS-B, Flarm, more

* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:01:58 -0800 (PST), Bob Kuykendall
wrote:

On Jan 28, 9:30*am, Derek Copeland wrote:

Why not just make a one design, mass produced 15m glider (preferably with
optional plug in 18m tips)...

Root bending moment scales something like exponentially with span,
regardless of whether the span is part of the orignial wing or added
later. So if you want to add 3m of span, you'd better design the wing
structure for it from the get-go.

We've already seen that even in what passes for mass production in the
glider world that the per-unit cost and price of a 15m ship are great
enough to severely limit the potential market, driving down production
rates and driving up per-unit costs. This is driven to some degree by
the complexity of the aircraft and the materials that go into it. It
is driven by a greater degree by the cost of the tooling, the amount
of floor space and volume it occupies, and by business expenses
relating to maintaining, heating, and lighting commensurate shop
space, and by wages and other labor costs. Big gliders require big
tools, and big tools require big shops, and the bigness seems to scale
with something like the square or the cube of the span.

The only thing I'm bringing to the party with my own 15m/18m design is
to keep overhead down to the barest of minimums and to offload a bunch
of the more labor intensive tasks of assembly, fitting, and finishing
to individual kit builders. The RV series of homebuilt airplanes
suggests that there is a great deal of manufacturing capacity
available in that market.

My interest in smaller gliders is chiefly in that they would fit into
smaller shops and smaller garages, opening up more potential market
for kit sailplanes. I also think that the potential kit market might
be more receptive to simplifications such as 90-degree landing flaps
instead of airbrakes as we saw with the Schreder HP kits and the
Monerai.

Thanks, Bob K.

Maybe Van's should do a 1-26 style kit!

Bob M.