Motor glider discussion(mistake)

[kewhite]

i have this freind who puts gas engines on his big gliders,he runs them for like 10 minutes and says" i cant seem to find any lift"..then he shuts it off then lands .. hes lost, that engine is annoying and ive flown his glider with the engine on it seems to be unable to indicate lift, at least while its running , I hate gas engine gliders. www.gliderworld.rchomepage.com

[rick's fork]

My experience with electric gliders is nearly opposite from what you describe. The electric motor allowed me to fly quickly without the setup of a winch or high start. For me the real fun started when I shut the motor off. I like to see how long I can keep the plane up from a 1 min motor run and I keep the motor off until I land. I get a lot of landing experience this way and have several flights before I run out of juice. One of my best flights was from a low thermal I found while setting up for landing.

I do agree that you can't read the air as well when under power, but the fun starts when you turn off the motor. I see the motor in the same way as a winch or high start - you're using external or stored energy to get the plane to altitude. The motor is just a tool and you can use the tool in different ways. The purity of HLG and DLG appeals to me, but I haven't gone there yet. Then again I'm not that pure...

[Doc Data]

If you are flying around with the power on, then you are not flying a sailplane but more like a regular airplane with long wings!

I love electric gliders. As Rick said, the ease of set up is great and it requires less space to launch. However, I always do a timed run to altitude(45 seconds or less for my 7 cell ships and 30 seconds or less for those with more the 7 cells). After that, its motor of and its all TD!

Dave