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Please see Talk:Glider GrahamN
There are separate articles for Glider, Motor glider and Touring Motor glider. There is much redundancy and overlap between this article and those. I have moved some of the content to these articles to trim this article down closer to the 32KB guideline. More work is needed, so we can add more content to this article.
Ray Van De Walker: I have moved the text you added about about "rotor" in the "Glider" article to here. But I'm not sure about your statement that most sailplane altitude records were set by riding rotors. I could be wrong, but I thought most record-breaking flights were done in wave. GrahamN
Amos Shapira: You use "Recently" about powerfull powered gliders being authorized to tow. I'd like to suggest that if you want to make this text relevant for a long period then you change that to some year estimate (e.g. "as of 1995" or somesuch, I don't know the exact year).
André Somers:
Hi, I have extended the text on launch methods a bit. Not only diesel engines are used in winches, also plain petrol or even LPG or natural gas. I have also added a subsection on the rubber band start method.
The frequent mutation of "evinced" into "evidenced" amuses me. -- Ghewgill 14:40, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I agree that there is nothing wrong with "evinced" as a word. However the sentence is rather inelegant. -- Jmcc150 08:20 1 June 2005 (UTC)
Gliding and soaring are not the same thing (this artical says as much), so I really don't think "soar" or "soaring" should redirect here as if the two were synonymous. This is an important distinction in animal flight, and conflating the two doesn't make things more clear.
On the subject of animal flight, directing people to bird flight is not good enough, because many more animals than birds fly by gliding and soaring. This article should either discuss animals and other natural gliders and soarers (heck, some seed pods can glide), or be reworded to reflect that fact that many things may glide or soar, whether they are man-made or not .
I don't want to hack into this page myself, as I am no expert on aerodynamics, but I may well do it if you don't pay me ONE MILLION DOLLARS, or do something to correct this page's shortcomings, whichever is easiest. John.Conway 02:42, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
OK I have set up Soaring as a disambiguation page. No knowledge of aerodynamics required. Please send me the million dollars, if it arrives. JMcC 16:44, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Animals face much the same issues in gliding that people do, and most glider pilots do well to observe these little experts of the air going about their business. Logically, much animal flight is normally considered gliding, but the article is using the term in a restricted human-only sense. My rough estimate is that covering animal flight may add a couple of k or so to the article, we could mostly just reference out to the other sub articles and then some light rephrasing would be all that is required.- (
User) Wolfkeeper (
Talk) 15:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Currently the article is a little above 42k, but not badly so. I note that the "summary style" soaring part of this article seems to have essentially 100% overlap with Lift (soaring), but I would be loathe to reduce the section here very much. Adding the shared material to a template and including it from both articles may be better than we have at the moment; it's unconventional to do that for main text, but it would stop them getting out of step. The other way would be to do some pruning to make it more summary style, but as I say, I'm reluctant.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 15:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
I think this page should be moved to Gliding (Aviation), and be linked to from a more generalised page on gliding. Any objections? John.Conway 17:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
No - it seems pretty clear to me that the aviation use of Gliding is the primary meaning. 'What links here' should always be your first port of call when considering a page move and is the fundamental basis of Wikipedia's article naming guidlines - ie. most editors should just be able to guess a link to an article without checking it. There are some incoming links (e.g. in bat and Hero System) where the process of gliding is intended but they are in the minority.
However, I agree that we need a more general page on the lift/drag aspects of the process of gliding, although much of this is infact covered in Bird flight. That could perhaps be at gliding (aeronautics) or possibly glide, which needs some work in any case. Note however that there is a completely different type of gliding that is a property of liquids, boats, skaters, dancers and snakes (according to my dictionary - your millage may vary), but that is probably best handled with a link to Wiktionary.
Similarly a page on hovering would be useful. AFIK only a handful of birds and insects. And you would also need to look at soaring. -- Solipsist 13:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I think the history section probably ought to make some mention of the use of gliders in several combat missions in the Second World War. The best way is probably to just point over to Military glider for the main details, since it isn't that closely related to gliding as a sport. -- Solipsist 10:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not especially familiar with aerobatic competitions, but isn't one of the features of gliding aerobatics in contrast to muscle aerobatics that the pilot has to be especially careful to perform maneuvers with the minimum loss of energy. I recall seeing one demonstration of aerobatics that principally involved beating back and forth above the runway climbing to perform a maneuver at each end. In effect carefully balancing the interplay of potential and kinetic energy. Excess drag in any maneuver would drain kinetic energy and limit the number of maneuvers that could be performed before landing. However, I don't know whether this is typical of aerobatic competitions. -- Solipsist 17:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I have passed this article. It is comprehensive, fairly well-referenced, well-illustrated (I actually sort of like that picture of the cumulus clouds with its psychedelic combination of slightly blown highlights, almost impossibly cobalt blue and just a bit too much sharpening ... makes me think of this this song and well-organized. I couldn't find anything that was too egregious for me. Ultimate compliment: I learned a few things I didn't know that made me go "Hmm ..."
One thing to fix, though, if the editors involved want to seek FA status: make sure to include English equivalents for the metric units used when discussing speed records et al. Also, you might want to consider having the pictures alternate sides. This has been shown to improve readability as it mirrors the sweep of our eyes across the page.
Congratulations! Daniel Case 18:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Moved from article page:
I'll concur with User:Jmcc150: this seems plausible, but needs a citable reference for inclusion. -- Solipsist 20:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Ballast is also mentioned in Lift-to-drag ratio: "To achieve high speed across country, gliders are often loaded with water ballast to increase the airspeed (allowing better penetration against a headwind)." Is a headwind the only condition in which ballast is advantageous? I'd assumed reducing your travel time between thermal sources would allow you to cover more ground while soaring conditions are good. Which is a more usual goal? What other reasons justify carrying ballast? (I'm hoping to put a section on aircraft's ballast use into Sailing ballast, but I need more info to be confident in summarising it accurately. Maybe one of you pilots will advise me or put it in yourself. I linked to there from the first use of "ballast" on both Gliding and Gliding flight.) - Egmonster ( talk)
Is my last ballast-related edit [1] accurate? The concept can be confusing: the statement that ballast "increases the rate of sink" appeared to support my original intuitive, incorrect assumption that glide ratio should suffer as loading increases. Increased sink rate by itself would seem to contradict the footnoted sentence about vehicle loading, with which I'd struggled in the Gliding flight#Glide ratio section before. Therefore I thought it worth clarification, even though the concept is mentioned a third time three paragraphs later. - Egmonster ( talk) 23:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
I would like to suggest that if you amend the above to read "...is generally tightly restricted.", it would be acceptable. One might also say 'rare' rather than 'unlikely' but then you would have to supply the stats to justify this - not that that would be impossible, but one must keep in mind that this article is addressing gliding worldwide, and not in any particular country. David FLXD ( talk) 08:36, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
First, this is unsourced. Second, gliders w/o any radios/electrical equipment are perfectly legal and frequent along low-level arrival routes, at least at the East-coast U.S. where I flew them, which makes me feel this is a wrong piece of original research. -- BACbKA 15:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I admit finding a source for a negative statement is trickier than a positive. A recent debate with the UK's Civil Aviation Authority over the universal fitting of transponders has only revealed one collision with an civil airliner (in France in 1999). This occurred in uncontrolled airspace and resulted in no injuries. [2] If there had been more, I have no doubt that the CAA's consultation paper [3] would have listed them. As it was, the CAA's case for transponders was embarrassingly flimsy, despite having the last sixty years of aviation accidents from throughout the world to choose from. The recent Minden incident with a bizjet also occurred in uncontrolled airspace. On that basis I felt that the statement 'collisions with commercial aircraft are unlikely' could be justified, though hard to reference. Secondly, I did not say that gliders could not penetrate controlled airspace. I said it was tightly restricted. There are many areas with low traffic volumes which gliders can penetrate (Class E & F) without radio contact. Class E only requires VFR and F only requires you to exercise caution. To my mind this is not really 'controlled' since since there is no need to contact a controller. Class D is another matter and I hope that your experience in the USA is similar and it really is controlled tightly. Radio contact is mandatory for me to enter Class D, and under ICAO rules it probably is in the USA also. There are places where higher categories of airspace can be penetrated but the rules get even tougher. I think a non-aviating reader would like to be reassured that the chances of an airliner, especially in controlled airspace, hitting a glider are vanishingly small. Do you have any suggestions how this could be phrased? JMcC 16:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
There has been seen another remarkable collision with a DG 100 and a Tornado GAF fighter-bomber the report of which can be viewed here. (German)
In the U.S., only class G is uncontrolled, A-E is controlled, and F is absent. See [4]. If an airliner doesn't look out and doesn't give right of way to glider, which they must, unless it's a head-on, in which case both must give way, there'll be a problem. You are right that class D requires radio contact; there might be exceptions by prior permission from the controlling authority (airshows/competitions/special events etc). I am 100% with you on advocating gliding as a safe activity to folks out there, but unless you can cite an external source actually evaluating the risks of a glider collision with an airliner, anything you phrase on the matter is original research. BACbKA 18:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm kind of surprised this is a featured article. In the two sections I read--the intro and winching sections--I noticed numerous runons and odd sounding sentences.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.94.246.41 ( talk)
I am shocked beyond belief that this article does not contain an In Popular Culture section. It is a firmly established Wikipedia tradition that all articles must end with a long list of cultural trivia, including every time the subject was mentioned in a tv show, video game, garage band song, and so on. Surely gliding must have been mentioned in at least one episode of the Simpsons. Come on now, you all don't want this to be the only Wikipedia article which doesn't link to The Simpsons, do you? -- Xyzzyplugh 09:23, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
It was in the Thomas Crowne Affair, maybe we could add that in :p The chicken lady 13:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Just wanted to drop a note-- This is a great article. Congratulations to all who spent time and energy on it. For me, it was a fascinating introduction to a subject to which I had minimal previous exposure. After reading it, I feel both more informed and able to continue pursuing knowledge on my own on this subject-- in other words, basically ideal. Thanks so much. Gcolive 15:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC) PS-- Xyzzyplugh, >:D
OK here is some trivia, In world war II some captured british pilots managed to hatch an escape plan that involved building a glider in the attic of their prison. They never made the flight but the plane was constructed. This was reported in Soaring magazine as well as other places.
Also in WW II the Germans used gliders very effectively in freeing Mussolini from his prison on a mountain top. The allies also used gliders to land troops behind enemy lines but it was not successful.
In the United States the soaring movement was started by the Schweitzer brothers of Elmira New York who also manafactured many different types of gliders. One the Schweitzer 2-33A is still used in many clubs. It is a two place trainer.
I believe that the air-force academy starts all their pilots off with glider instruction. For many years they used the Schweitzer 2-33A.
Minden Nevada boasts that soaring flights to 18,000 feet are possible because of the natural conditions there. ( typical tows are 3000 feet).
In competition flights water ballast is frequently used. This added weight increases the speed of the planes. it is released before landing.
One aspect of this sport is the ever present event that a pilot will have to land away from his home airport. This is called landing out' In this event the planes can be disassembled, loaded on special trailers and towed back to the airports. Many planes are stored in their trailers and only assembled on those days when they are to be flown. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arydberg ( talk • contribs) 03:45, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
In every situation I've flown the tow rope has the weak link at the 'glider' end, not the 'tow plane' end. It would ruin your day to have a couple of hundred feet of tow rope come back and, say, wrap around your elevator... With the weak link at the 'glider' end, the tow plane doesn't experience any problems with their operations if a break occurs, considering that they're used to flying with the rope behind them without the glider anyways. Trivia - the 'weak link' is just a simple overhand knot in the rope; this creates weakness in the tow rope so that it will fail at the knot instead of at an unknown location. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.103.96.11 ( talk)
In the US the link ( or the tow rope) also must withstand 50% of the weight of the glider and must break before 200%. Arydberg ( talk) 03:49, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
I came to the gliding page, and saw that the first paragraph had an odd, rambling sentence about mr. illingworth. I went to edit the page to get rid of it, but the edit page didn't have any reference to DJI, and there was no record of it in the history page. Why did that happen?
I see that my change has been reverted -- fair enough! But I still think that the ordinary reader could come away with the impression that a 5,000 km XC occasionally occurs. After all, "in some cases thousands" implies _at least_ 2,000 km. Couldn't some form of words be found to avoid giving the impression that "many thousands" of km are flown? Ndsg 17:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
PS Having just returned to this page, I now see that the Finnish comp with its 1,000km+ task was already mentioned. Sorry I didn't notice it before! NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
In the Maximizing speed subsection of the Cross-country section reference is made to "flight computers". I wondered why there was no link to any article on this important topic—only to discover that there is no such article!
I wonder whether anyone feels like taking on the challenge of writing this article. (No, I'm afraid I have neither the time nor the technical expertise to do so myself!) It has all the makings of an interesting article:
In the meantime, perhaps the reference in the main Gliding article could be expanded slightly. NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 22:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Reply to your question on my Talk page. -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 16:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Call me pedantic, but ... The wording was a bit ambiguous, & seemed to imply that the 50km could be flown in separate flights. I've now made it quite clear what was meant. -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
It isn't mentioned in the SSA FAQ, but it's come to my attention that weight restrictions are a significant barrier to learning how to glide (one source told me that no operation near NYC could train a person over 235 pounds). Could someone knowledgeable provide information on this point? 204.186.59.81 00:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Also a medical exam is not required in the United States to be a glider pilot. Arydberg ( talk) 03:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
UK requirement is for a pupil pilot to self-certify their medical condition, but for an examination by one's own doctor to fly solo. Thereafter check-ups are needed at intervals determined by age. JMcC ( talk) 08:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Might I suggest creating a separate article for winch launches? They vary to a significant extent from auto-launch, I think it merits its own (albeit somewhat short) article. If a sufficient level of detail is provided, there is no reason for it to be a stub. I think the amount of information given is enough to show that there's more to winch launches, but not enough (yet) to become its own article. Not being familiar with winch launches terribly well myself, is there someone out there who knows enough to contribute to this? 64.252.75.102 19:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Why the external link to this specific club? -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a userbox for inclusion on User pages announcing that the user is a glider pilot. I see that there is already such a box at User:UBX/gliderpilot; but the message This pilot doesn't need no stinkin' engine, thank you very much! isn't to everyone's taste. Without being too po-faced about it, I wonder whether we could devise a slightly more sober message: any suggestions (other than the rather lame This user is a glider pilot)? -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Under Badges the article states that Typically, a bronze badge shows preparation for cross-country flight, including precise landings and a pair of two-hour flights. This isn't the case in the UK, where the requirements are for a pair of half-hour flights (or one-hour flights if aerotowing is used). For the XC Endorsement a one-hour and a two-hour flight are required. Was this a typo, or are the requirements different in countries where there is no XCE? -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Anyone who has an interest in this article, should be aware that a discussion has started on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gliding. JMcC ( talk) 13:26, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
I genuinely thought the edit [5] was non controversial and matched the scope of the article precisely.
Before I revert it, what exactly is supposed to be 'patently untrue' about it?- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 18:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Would you do a little research before editing a well developed and well referenced article? There is a big difference between what you might think is true and reality. I am not going to point out the error. Instead I would prefer if you did not blunder around hoping that someone else might pick up the pieces. JMcC ( talk) 21:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) What the heck is a 'faired cockpit glider?' -- Regent's Park ( Rose Garden) 14:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
As part of the featured article review I have had to replace some of the photos with similar shots but with acceptable copyright permissions. However one of the shots is less than ideal. Does anyone have a photo of a glider being derigged into its trailer in a field? JMcC ( talk) 19:15, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
After making efforts to meet the requirements of the Featured Article review Wikipedia:Featured article review/Gliding/archive1 I have decided that I cannot spend any more time on this. If anyone wants to comply with the latest review points, please do so. I have replaced several photos because of queries about copyright. JMcC ( talk) 21:55, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
It is my understanding that 2-place gliders were not built until about 1930. I have a news clipping about my mother being the first woman to parachute from a glider on 11/13/30. Her pilot was Lyman Voepel, owner of the glider, who held the record of 18 loop-loops at the time. Glenn Lane (glennlane1@aol.com). 2602:304:CDA6:51B0:507A:A38A:52DC:3D54 ( talk) 09:22, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
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There doesn't seem to be any mention of when powered planes like the Gimli Glider are forced to glide due to engine failure or forgetting to top up. Can anyone help? Siuenti ( 씨유엔티) 11:05, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Gliding flight which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 13:17, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
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Gliding is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | ||||||||||||||||
This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 23, 2006. | ||||||||||||||||
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Current status: Featured article |
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Please see Talk:Glider GrahamN
There are separate articles for Glider, Motor glider and Touring Motor glider. There is much redundancy and overlap between this article and those. I have moved some of the content to these articles to trim this article down closer to the 32KB guideline. More work is needed, so we can add more content to this article.
Ray Van De Walker: I have moved the text you added about about "rotor" in the "Glider" article to here. But I'm not sure about your statement that most sailplane altitude records were set by riding rotors. I could be wrong, but I thought most record-breaking flights were done in wave. GrahamN
Amos Shapira: You use "Recently" about powerfull powered gliders being authorized to tow. I'd like to suggest that if you want to make this text relevant for a long period then you change that to some year estimate (e.g. "as of 1995" or somesuch, I don't know the exact year).
André Somers:
Hi, I have extended the text on launch methods a bit. Not only diesel engines are used in winches, also plain petrol or even LPG or natural gas. I have also added a subsection on the rubber band start method.
The frequent mutation of "evinced" into "evidenced" amuses me. -- Ghewgill 14:40, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I agree that there is nothing wrong with "evinced" as a word. However the sentence is rather inelegant. -- Jmcc150 08:20 1 June 2005 (UTC)
Gliding and soaring are not the same thing (this artical says as much), so I really don't think "soar" or "soaring" should redirect here as if the two were synonymous. This is an important distinction in animal flight, and conflating the two doesn't make things more clear.
On the subject of animal flight, directing people to bird flight is not good enough, because many more animals than birds fly by gliding and soaring. This article should either discuss animals and other natural gliders and soarers (heck, some seed pods can glide), or be reworded to reflect that fact that many things may glide or soar, whether they are man-made or not .
I don't want to hack into this page myself, as I am no expert on aerodynamics, but I may well do it if you don't pay me ONE MILLION DOLLARS, or do something to correct this page's shortcomings, whichever is easiest. John.Conway 02:42, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
OK I have set up Soaring as a disambiguation page. No knowledge of aerodynamics required. Please send me the million dollars, if it arrives. JMcC 16:44, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Animals face much the same issues in gliding that people do, and most glider pilots do well to observe these little experts of the air going about their business. Logically, much animal flight is normally considered gliding, but the article is using the term in a restricted human-only sense. My rough estimate is that covering animal flight may add a couple of k or so to the article, we could mostly just reference out to the other sub articles and then some light rephrasing would be all that is required.- (
User) Wolfkeeper (
Talk) 15:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Currently the article is a little above 42k, but not badly so. I note that the "summary style" soaring part of this article seems to have essentially 100% overlap with Lift (soaring), but I would be loathe to reduce the section here very much. Adding the shared material to a template and including it from both articles may be better than we have at the moment; it's unconventional to do that for main text, but it would stop them getting out of step. The other way would be to do some pruning to make it more summary style, but as I say, I'm reluctant.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 15:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
I think this page should be moved to Gliding (Aviation), and be linked to from a more generalised page on gliding. Any objections? John.Conway 17:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
No - it seems pretty clear to me that the aviation use of Gliding is the primary meaning. 'What links here' should always be your first port of call when considering a page move and is the fundamental basis of Wikipedia's article naming guidlines - ie. most editors should just be able to guess a link to an article without checking it. There are some incoming links (e.g. in bat and Hero System) where the process of gliding is intended but they are in the minority.
However, I agree that we need a more general page on the lift/drag aspects of the process of gliding, although much of this is infact covered in Bird flight. That could perhaps be at gliding (aeronautics) or possibly glide, which needs some work in any case. Note however that there is a completely different type of gliding that is a property of liquids, boats, skaters, dancers and snakes (according to my dictionary - your millage may vary), but that is probably best handled with a link to Wiktionary.
Similarly a page on hovering would be useful. AFIK only a handful of birds and insects. And you would also need to look at soaring. -- Solipsist 13:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I think the history section probably ought to make some mention of the use of gliders in several combat missions in the Second World War. The best way is probably to just point over to Military glider for the main details, since it isn't that closely related to gliding as a sport. -- Solipsist 10:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not especially familiar with aerobatic competitions, but isn't one of the features of gliding aerobatics in contrast to muscle aerobatics that the pilot has to be especially careful to perform maneuvers with the minimum loss of energy. I recall seeing one demonstration of aerobatics that principally involved beating back and forth above the runway climbing to perform a maneuver at each end. In effect carefully balancing the interplay of potential and kinetic energy. Excess drag in any maneuver would drain kinetic energy and limit the number of maneuvers that could be performed before landing. However, I don't know whether this is typical of aerobatic competitions. -- Solipsist 17:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I have passed this article. It is comprehensive, fairly well-referenced, well-illustrated (I actually sort of like that picture of the cumulus clouds with its psychedelic combination of slightly blown highlights, almost impossibly cobalt blue and just a bit too much sharpening ... makes me think of this this song and well-organized. I couldn't find anything that was too egregious for me. Ultimate compliment: I learned a few things I didn't know that made me go "Hmm ..."
One thing to fix, though, if the editors involved want to seek FA status: make sure to include English equivalents for the metric units used when discussing speed records et al. Also, you might want to consider having the pictures alternate sides. This has been shown to improve readability as it mirrors the sweep of our eyes across the page.
Congratulations! Daniel Case 18:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Moved from article page:
I'll concur with User:Jmcc150: this seems plausible, but needs a citable reference for inclusion. -- Solipsist 20:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Ballast is also mentioned in Lift-to-drag ratio: "To achieve high speed across country, gliders are often loaded with water ballast to increase the airspeed (allowing better penetration against a headwind)." Is a headwind the only condition in which ballast is advantageous? I'd assumed reducing your travel time between thermal sources would allow you to cover more ground while soaring conditions are good. Which is a more usual goal? What other reasons justify carrying ballast? (I'm hoping to put a section on aircraft's ballast use into Sailing ballast, but I need more info to be confident in summarising it accurately. Maybe one of you pilots will advise me or put it in yourself. I linked to there from the first use of "ballast" on both Gliding and Gliding flight.) - Egmonster ( talk)
Is my last ballast-related edit [1] accurate? The concept can be confusing: the statement that ballast "increases the rate of sink" appeared to support my original intuitive, incorrect assumption that glide ratio should suffer as loading increases. Increased sink rate by itself would seem to contradict the footnoted sentence about vehicle loading, with which I'd struggled in the Gliding flight#Glide ratio section before. Therefore I thought it worth clarification, even though the concept is mentioned a third time three paragraphs later. - Egmonster ( talk) 23:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
I would like to suggest that if you amend the above to read "...is generally tightly restricted.", it would be acceptable. One might also say 'rare' rather than 'unlikely' but then you would have to supply the stats to justify this - not that that would be impossible, but one must keep in mind that this article is addressing gliding worldwide, and not in any particular country. David FLXD ( talk) 08:36, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
First, this is unsourced. Second, gliders w/o any radios/electrical equipment are perfectly legal and frequent along low-level arrival routes, at least at the East-coast U.S. where I flew them, which makes me feel this is a wrong piece of original research. -- BACbKA 15:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I admit finding a source for a negative statement is trickier than a positive. A recent debate with the UK's Civil Aviation Authority over the universal fitting of transponders has only revealed one collision with an civil airliner (in France in 1999). This occurred in uncontrolled airspace and resulted in no injuries. [2] If there had been more, I have no doubt that the CAA's consultation paper [3] would have listed them. As it was, the CAA's case for transponders was embarrassingly flimsy, despite having the last sixty years of aviation accidents from throughout the world to choose from. The recent Minden incident with a bizjet also occurred in uncontrolled airspace. On that basis I felt that the statement 'collisions with commercial aircraft are unlikely' could be justified, though hard to reference. Secondly, I did not say that gliders could not penetrate controlled airspace. I said it was tightly restricted. There are many areas with low traffic volumes which gliders can penetrate (Class E & F) without radio contact. Class E only requires VFR and F only requires you to exercise caution. To my mind this is not really 'controlled' since since there is no need to contact a controller. Class D is another matter and I hope that your experience in the USA is similar and it really is controlled tightly. Radio contact is mandatory for me to enter Class D, and under ICAO rules it probably is in the USA also. There are places where higher categories of airspace can be penetrated but the rules get even tougher. I think a non-aviating reader would like to be reassured that the chances of an airliner, especially in controlled airspace, hitting a glider are vanishingly small. Do you have any suggestions how this could be phrased? JMcC 16:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
There has been seen another remarkable collision with a DG 100 and a Tornado GAF fighter-bomber the report of which can be viewed here. (German)
In the U.S., only class G is uncontrolled, A-E is controlled, and F is absent. See [4]. If an airliner doesn't look out and doesn't give right of way to glider, which they must, unless it's a head-on, in which case both must give way, there'll be a problem. You are right that class D requires radio contact; there might be exceptions by prior permission from the controlling authority (airshows/competitions/special events etc). I am 100% with you on advocating gliding as a safe activity to folks out there, but unless you can cite an external source actually evaluating the risks of a glider collision with an airliner, anything you phrase on the matter is original research. BACbKA 18:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm kind of surprised this is a featured article. In the two sections I read--the intro and winching sections--I noticed numerous runons and odd sounding sentences.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.94.246.41 ( talk)
I am shocked beyond belief that this article does not contain an In Popular Culture section. It is a firmly established Wikipedia tradition that all articles must end with a long list of cultural trivia, including every time the subject was mentioned in a tv show, video game, garage band song, and so on. Surely gliding must have been mentioned in at least one episode of the Simpsons. Come on now, you all don't want this to be the only Wikipedia article which doesn't link to The Simpsons, do you? -- Xyzzyplugh 09:23, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
It was in the Thomas Crowne Affair, maybe we could add that in :p The chicken lady 13:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Just wanted to drop a note-- This is a great article. Congratulations to all who spent time and energy on it. For me, it was a fascinating introduction to a subject to which I had minimal previous exposure. After reading it, I feel both more informed and able to continue pursuing knowledge on my own on this subject-- in other words, basically ideal. Thanks so much. Gcolive 15:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC) PS-- Xyzzyplugh, >:D
OK here is some trivia, In world war II some captured british pilots managed to hatch an escape plan that involved building a glider in the attic of their prison. They never made the flight but the plane was constructed. This was reported in Soaring magazine as well as other places.
Also in WW II the Germans used gliders very effectively in freeing Mussolini from his prison on a mountain top. The allies also used gliders to land troops behind enemy lines but it was not successful.
In the United States the soaring movement was started by the Schweitzer brothers of Elmira New York who also manafactured many different types of gliders. One the Schweitzer 2-33A is still used in many clubs. It is a two place trainer.
I believe that the air-force academy starts all their pilots off with glider instruction. For many years they used the Schweitzer 2-33A.
Minden Nevada boasts that soaring flights to 18,000 feet are possible because of the natural conditions there. ( typical tows are 3000 feet).
In competition flights water ballast is frequently used. This added weight increases the speed of the planes. it is released before landing.
One aspect of this sport is the ever present event that a pilot will have to land away from his home airport. This is called landing out' In this event the planes can be disassembled, loaded on special trailers and towed back to the airports. Many planes are stored in their trailers and only assembled on those days when they are to be flown. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arydberg ( talk • contribs) 03:45, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
In every situation I've flown the tow rope has the weak link at the 'glider' end, not the 'tow plane' end. It would ruin your day to have a couple of hundred feet of tow rope come back and, say, wrap around your elevator... With the weak link at the 'glider' end, the tow plane doesn't experience any problems with their operations if a break occurs, considering that they're used to flying with the rope behind them without the glider anyways. Trivia - the 'weak link' is just a simple overhand knot in the rope; this creates weakness in the tow rope so that it will fail at the knot instead of at an unknown location. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.103.96.11 ( talk)
In the US the link ( or the tow rope) also must withstand 50% of the weight of the glider and must break before 200%. Arydberg ( talk) 03:49, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
I came to the gliding page, and saw that the first paragraph had an odd, rambling sentence about mr. illingworth. I went to edit the page to get rid of it, but the edit page didn't have any reference to DJI, and there was no record of it in the history page. Why did that happen?
I see that my change has been reverted -- fair enough! But I still think that the ordinary reader could come away with the impression that a 5,000 km XC occasionally occurs. After all, "in some cases thousands" implies _at least_ 2,000 km. Couldn't some form of words be found to avoid giving the impression that "many thousands" of km are flown? Ndsg 17:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
PS Having just returned to this page, I now see that the Finnish comp with its 1,000km+ task was already mentioned. Sorry I didn't notice it before! NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
In the Maximizing speed subsection of the Cross-country section reference is made to "flight computers". I wondered why there was no link to any article on this important topic—only to discover that there is no such article!
I wonder whether anyone feels like taking on the challenge of writing this article. (No, I'm afraid I have neither the time nor the technical expertise to do so myself!) It has all the makings of an interesting article:
In the meantime, perhaps the reference in the main Gliding article could be expanded slightly. NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 22:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Reply to your question on my Talk page. -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 16:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Call me pedantic, but ... The wording was a bit ambiguous, & seemed to imply that the 50km could be flown in separate flights. I've now made it quite clear what was meant. -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
It isn't mentioned in the SSA FAQ, but it's come to my attention that weight restrictions are a significant barrier to learning how to glide (one source told me that no operation near NYC could train a person over 235 pounds). Could someone knowledgeable provide information on this point? 204.186.59.81 00:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Also a medical exam is not required in the United States to be a glider pilot. Arydberg ( talk) 03:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
UK requirement is for a pupil pilot to self-certify their medical condition, but for an examination by one's own doctor to fly solo. Thereafter check-ups are needed at intervals determined by age. JMcC ( talk) 08:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Might I suggest creating a separate article for winch launches? They vary to a significant extent from auto-launch, I think it merits its own (albeit somewhat short) article. If a sufficient level of detail is provided, there is no reason for it to be a stub. I think the amount of information given is enough to show that there's more to winch launches, but not enough (yet) to become its own article. Not being familiar with winch launches terribly well myself, is there someone out there who knows enough to contribute to this? 64.252.75.102 19:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Why the external link to this specific club? -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a userbox for inclusion on User pages announcing that the user is a glider pilot. I see that there is already such a box at User:UBX/gliderpilot; but the message This pilot doesn't need no stinkin' engine, thank you very much! isn't to everyone's taste. Without being too po-faced about it, I wonder whether we could devise a slightly more sober message: any suggestions (other than the rather lame This user is a glider pilot)? -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Under Badges the article states that Typically, a bronze badge shows preparation for cross-country flight, including precise landings and a pair of two-hour flights. This isn't the case in the UK, where the requirements are for a pair of half-hour flights (or one-hour flights if aerotowing is used). For the XC Endorsement a one-hour and a two-hour flight are required. Was this a typo, or are the requirements different in countries where there is no XCE? -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Anyone who has an interest in this article, should be aware that a discussion has started on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gliding. JMcC ( talk) 13:26, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
I genuinely thought the edit [5] was non controversial and matched the scope of the article precisely.
Before I revert it, what exactly is supposed to be 'patently untrue' about it?- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 18:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Would you do a little research before editing a well developed and well referenced article? There is a big difference between what you might think is true and reality. I am not going to point out the error. Instead I would prefer if you did not blunder around hoping that someone else might pick up the pieces. JMcC ( talk) 21:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) What the heck is a 'faired cockpit glider?' -- Regent's Park ( Rose Garden) 14:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
As part of the featured article review I have had to replace some of the photos with similar shots but with acceptable copyright permissions. However one of the shots is less than ideal. Does anyone have a photo of a glider being derigged into its trailer in a field? JMcC ( talk) 19:15, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
After making efforts to meet the requirements of the Featured Article review Wikipedia:Featured article review/Gliding/archive1 I have decided that I cannot spend any more time on this. If anyone wants to comply with the latest review points, please do so. I have replaced several photos because of queries about copyright. JMcC ( talk) 21:55, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
It is my understanding that 2-place gliders were not built until about 1930. I have a news clipping about my mother being the first woman to parachute from a glider on 11/13/30. Her pilot was Lyman Voepel, owner of the glider, who held the record of 18 loop-loops at the time. Glenn Lane (glennlane1@aol.com). 2602:304:CDA6:51B0:507A:A38A:52DC:3D54 ( talk) 09:22, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
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There doesn't seem to be any mention of when powered planes like the Gimli Glider are forced to glide due to engine failure or forgetting to top up. Can anyone help? Siuenti ( 씨유엔티) 11:05, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
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