Hang Gliding Record Distance Flight Story

On Jan 13, 8:59*am, Mike the Strike wrote:
As an ex hang-glider pilot, I also thought that the story was well researched and nicely written, without the usual inaccuracies.

One interesting note - the article says that pilots had to land before half-an-hour after sunset for the record to be valid. *Is this true and, if so, why do they get half-an-hour longer than glider pilots?

Mike

They carried strobe lights for just that purpose. We need to look
into that to see if such an addition to gliders could give us the
extra 1/2 hour.

Bob

Hello Bob, you wrote at 01 Jan 2013 17:26:

On Jan 13, 8:59 am, Mike the Strike wrote:
As an ex hang-glider pilot, I also thought that the story was well researched and nicely written, without the usual inaccuracies.

One interesting note - the article says that pilots had to land before half-an-hour after sunset for the record to be valid. Is this true and, if so, why do they get half-an-hour longer than glider pilots?

Mike

They carried strobe lights for just that purpose. We need to look
into that to see if such an addition to gliders could give us the
extra 1/2 hour.

AFAIK, use of position lights allows this (at least over here in Germany).

regards
Werner

On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 07:59:41 -0800, Mike the Strike wrote:

As an ex hang-glider pilot, I also thought that the story was well
researched and nicely written, without the usual inaccuracies.

One interesting note - the article says that pilots had to land before
half-an-hour after sunset for the record to be valid. Is this true and,
if so, why do they get half-an-hour longer than glider pilots?


In the UK, anyway, a glider flight must take place during the day, i.e.
may not start or finish at night. The following definitions apply:

night ends 1/2 hour before astronomical sunrise
night starts 1/2 hour after astronomical sunset

....where astronomical sunrise and sunset must be calculated for a
specific lat/lon and day of the year. IIRC for the purposes of this
calculation the world is assumed to be a perfect ovoid, i.e. the effect
of nearby mountains between the sun and the required location is not
taken into account.

As this is an aviation definition of the start and end of night time, I'd
assume the same calculation is used in the USA.

This is why the article talked about the need to land before sunset + 30
minutes.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 11:04:43 AM UTC-7, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 07:59:41 -0800, Mike the Strike wrote:



As an ex hang-glider pilot, I also thought that the story was well

researched and nicely written, without the usual inaccuracies.



One interesting note - the article says that pilots had to land before

half-an-hour after sunset for the record to be valid. Is this true and,

if so, why do they get half-an-hour longer than glider pilots?





In the UK, anyway, a glider flight must take place during the day, i.e.

may not start or finish at night. The following definitions apply:



night ends 1/2 hour before astronomical sunrise

night starts 1/2 hour after astronomical sunset



...where astronomical sunrise and sunset must be calculated for a

specific lat/lon and day of the year. IIRC for the purposes of this

calculation the world is assumed to be a perfect ovoid, i.e. the effect

of nearby mountains between the sun and the required location is not

taken into account.



As this is an aviation definition of the start and end of night time, I'd

assume the same calculation is used in the USA.



This is why the article talked about the need to land before sunset + 30

minutes.


Out here in the US west, we are limited by the available daylight in summer and are very annoyed by the requirement to terminate flights by sunset - a typical requirement in sanctioned contests and also used by OLC.

We have attempted several times to address this issue, but no success so far. The problem appears to be several inconsistent regulations pertaining to definitions of night in the Federal Aviation Regulations.

I believe that the main problem is that aircraft are required to carry lights after sunset and, since most gliders don't have lights, flight after sunset is considered illegal. I assume that carrying a strobe permits hang-gliders to circumnavigate this requirement?

Mike

On Jan 12, 2:51*pm, John Carlyle wrote:
Very good read about Dustin Martin beating Jonny Durand during a 475 mile hang gliding world distance record, with Gary Osoba providing the day's forecast.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/sp...y-the-silent-r...

-John, Q3

Two more comments on this thread. 1) I am often amazed how one story
gets hijacked into something else. The thread went from celebrating a
good article about hang gliding in a non-flying publication to a
discussion of how to fly past sunset. 2) more importantly - For those
who just read the article on the web and didn't get to see it in
actual print - you REALLY missed the impressiveness of this article!
A friend of mine who reads the New York Times sent me a the section of
the paper with the article... the Sports Section. The story occupies
the majority of 5 full pages, including the front page. Page 1 has a
full half page color aerial photo, which really gets your attention.
The center section page has a full 2 -page wide color aerial photo
that fills the top 1/2 of the pages. There are 9 color photos in this
spread and 10 well-done drawings that show much about the flight and
how hang gliders work, including a full 2-page wide barograph trace of
both pilots' flights. Plus, the whole story is VERY well done and
VERY complimentary about the sport of hang gliding.

The sport of soaring would do well if we could convince this author to
do a story on Dick Butler, his Concordia, and the World Meet in
Uvalde.

Bob
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