I looked but didn't find anything on this, so here goes.

Is there a rule of thumb as to the "angle" your dlg is from you being an indicator of how safe you are, as far as getting back home is concerned?

Assuming there is no (to light) wind, a certain angle (say 45°), should serve as a "safe" indicator no matter how high you are, because at that angle your height and distance should match, right?

I'm sure winds and airfoils will effect your optimum angle.

This is something you must learn the hard way. I find it amazing how far out you can go and how low you can be and still get back. You will land short many times even when you think getting back should have been easy. Sink cycles can make you take the walk of shame.

A DLG typically has a glide ratio of about 20:1, so with no wind at all you could say a safe angle would be atan(1/20) = 2.86 degrees above the horizontal. The reality, though, is that with sink, lift, uneven ground, turbulence, control inputs, etc you're highly unlikely to achieve that glide ratio. I think the best way to determine how far you can go and still be safe is experience. Go find the biggest flying field you can and spend an hour launching and flying in a straight line out as far as you think you can go and then turning and coming back. Repeat. You'll land short a few times, but you'll learn your boundaries pretty darn well and you'll be surprised at just how far you can go. Then look for lift and drift with it, bailing only when you think you won't make it back if you stay any longer. You'll learn how fast you have to be climbing to justify staying in the lift.

Originally Posted by davidjensen

This is something you must learn the hard way. I find it amazing how far out you can go and how low you can be and still get back. You will land short many times even when you think getting back should have been easy. Sink cycles can make you take the walk of shame.

Thanx David, I knew there wouldn't be any hard rule (for even an individual plane, much less all planes), but I was curious if any kind of "angle method" was actually used by anyone as a sort of baseline for a particular plane.

I'm pretty comfortable with wind (low turns included), and even flying in tight spaces (knock on wood!). But I just can't seem to push my distance yet....I'm skeeerd. :-)

Originally Posted by bwill6

A DLG typically has a glide ratio of about 20:1, so with no wind at all you could say a safe angle would be atan(1/20) = 2.86 degrees above the horizontal. The reality, though, is that with sink, lift, uneven ground, turbulence, control inputs, etc you're highly unlikely to achieve that glide ratio. I think the best way to determine how far you can go and still be safe is experience. Go find the biggest flying field you can and spend an hour launching and flying in a straight line out as far as you think you can go and then turning and coming back. Repeat. You'll land short a few times, but you'll learn your boundaries pretty darn well and you'll be surprised at just how far you can go. Then look for lift and drift with it, bailing only when you think you won't make it back if you stay any longer. You'll learn how fast you have to be climbing to justify staying in the lift.

That's good advice, I don't know why I haven't tried the "fly strait, then turn around" thing yet. It makes sense to take small bites, so to speak. Thanx.

Just do it and deal with the consequences later. So what if you land 150' away from you on your way back? Unless your field is small and surrounded by trees and or houses or a lake or a wetland or a highway or power lines or or or.

Fly up and out a safe distance & turn the plane around so it is flying right at you.

Set it in coming home cruise, and watch the wings / fuse. If all you see is the front of the wings, and they stay at a constant fron to back angle from you while coming home, that is your glide path needed to make the field ( barring any sink etc).

If the plane starts showing more of the underside, it is higher than needed, if it is showing topside, it probably is too low and may not make it back.

One you have determined that angle, it can be project as far as needed.

This make sense?

BP

it all depends - as said above.

I've come back from being a speck and "way to low" to make it - hit lift on the way etc

have hit bad sink when you think you can make it easy - and you don't.......

do the fly as far away as you can thing - its fun learning how far you can go - and walking./running is good for you anyway - so if you land miles away - enjoy the walk

Originally Posted by bbbp

Fly up and out a safe distance & turn the plane around so it is flying right at you.

Set it in coming home cruise, and watch the wings / fuse. If all you see is the front of the wings, and they stay at a constant fron to back angle from you while coming home, that is your glide path needed to make the field ( barring any sink etc).

If the plane starts showing more of the underside, it is higher than needed, if it is showing topside, it probably is too low and may not make it back.

One you have determined that angle, it can be project as far as needed.

This make sense?

BP

Yes, it does! I guess that's kinda what I was alluding to, thanx.

Originally Posted by davidjensen

Just do it and deal with the consequences later. So what if you land 150' away from you on your way back? Unless your field is small and surrounded by trees and or houses or a lake or a wetland or a highway or power lines or or or.

Funny :-), "just deal with it!" You're right though.

Originally Posted by gtrbaby

it all depends - as said above.

I've come back from being a speck and "way to low" to make it - hit lift on the way etc

have hit bad sink when you think you can make it easy - and you don't.......

do the fly as far away as you can thing - its fun learning how far you can go - and walking./running is good for you anyway - so if you land miles away - enjoy the walk

Thanx gtrbaby-(is that abrv. for gator, or guitar?)

Speaking of having to walk "miles" for my plane, I think one of my biggest fears so far (+ I only have the one plane) is having to land out of full control (distance/orientation problems). Is it a good idea to just hit full flaps in that scenario?

This is just one of those things that comes with experience and flying a lot. It's all about making the judgement of when is too far in when you can go further depending on the current conditions. 9 times out of 10, you're not as far as you think, then there's that one time you're much farther than you think! The only way to get comfortable with flying at range is to do it. Many times while I'm practicing by myself, I chase thermals much further away than I ever would in a contest, just to push the limits and see what is really possible. That helps me a lot in contests knowing when to push far downwind and when to search elsewhere. Knowing that you're a bow hunter it's pretty much the same as making the judgment of what is in range and what is too far for a clean shot.

Nice Kyle, remember when I sent you to the next county low and far while timing for you at Frederick ? You got the lift and was sent home reluctantly but ecstatically none the less !
You got the mini man card that day and walked off without shame !

Ha! How could I forget that one?! Last flight of last two, and I launched with what I thought was a close read only to be sent back packing the foot hills of western MD. I still recall it quite frequently. At the time, that was the farthest I had ever chased lift downwind. Actually, that may still be in the record books for me as one of my farthest successful chases. My hands were shaking so bad that I could hear the tip of the 72mHz antenna jingling!

While everyone is saying you have to experiment and learn how far you can go out, you can do a lot of practicing of this even on small fields. For some like me, as I have gotten older I have trended to not want to walk too far, or even climb too high to get a plane. I fly an old nostalgia class Cirrus in TD contests. Once at Visalia I landed out 3 times in one day in a full fledged cotton field (I would advise you never to land out in those) and had to do the walk. But I tell new flyers of DLG, or those fellow club members who fly my DLG, that DLG I snot like the more massive TD ships. TD ships have momentum and energy and can keep flying. But with DLGs you have to keep them at speed. I say if in doubt about making it back give them more down. I have seen at Poway over nearly 14 years of flying there, if you pull up or bobble when you are trying to come back from downwind, you land where you bobble or slow down. If your DLG is up at speed, a bobble slows down the plane much much faster than you think, and then you never can recover. To recover you have to push the nose down and speed the plane up. On a bobble, the plane slows then takes more altitude to get the speed back. Most newer DLGs of course have lower drag, so they can keep the speed. But they too can slow down and you will land out. Once you understand that speed is the key, then you can traverse your way through sink via different paths and learn that route. The more you land out, the more you learn what your plane can do and how far you can stretch it. Knowing how far out you are and your glide angle, as has been stated, you can get a rough idea about making it back.

Just a few other thoughts contributing to the glide angle analysis.

Chris