Glider World

In the beginning of our topic we would stop and review more closely Gliders aircrafts. Gliders or Sailplanes as they are often referred to, are a light engineless aircrafts designed to glide after being towed aloft or launched from a catapult, they come in all shapes, and sizes. There are single place trainers, two place, and even three place craft. Sailplanes are constructed from such materials as: aluminum, wood, or a special fabric stretched over steel tubing. Some sailplanes are extremely refined, designed for maximum performance and constructed from exotic composite materials while others are designed for training new pilots necessitating rugged economy.

Wingspans can fluctuate from under 40 feet to nearly 90 feet. And the empty weight (without a pilot) of sailplanes can be as little as 250 lbs, or nearly 114 kg. Competition sailplanes use carbon and fiberglass composites molded into extremely strong and accurate shapes to provide strong, lightweight structures using advanced aerodynamics to create the most refined aircraft ever created. Sailplane pilots fit snuggly in the cockpit and control the manipulate aircrafts control surfaces. All gliders are wings and tail are removable and slide securely into a special Just like cars the sky is the limit when it comes to price available for $15,000 to $50,000 and top of the line racing competition types cost between $50,000 and $100,000.

The two widespread methods of launching gliders are by aerotow and by winch. When aerotowed, the glider is towed behind a powered aircraft using a rope about 60 meters (about 200 ft) long. The glider's pilot releases the rope after reaching the desired altitude, but the rope can also be released by the towplane in an emergency. Winch launching uses a powerful stationary engine located on the ground at the far end of the launch area. The glider is attached to one end of 800-1200 metres (about 2,500-4,000 ft) of wire cable and the winch then rapidly winds it in. More rarely, powerful automobiles are used to pull gliders into the air, by pulling them directly or through the use of a pulley in a similar manner to the winch launch. Elastic ropes can also be used to launch gliders off slopes if there is sufficient wind blowing up the hill. The glider will then gain height using ridge lift.

In China, kites rather than gliders were used for military scouting to gain important information. However the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era (978) suggests that a true glider was designed in the 5th century BC by Lu Ban, a contemporary of Confucius. There is also a report from the History of Northern Dynasties (659) and Zizhi Tongjian (1084) that Yuan Huangtou in Ye made a successful glide, taking off from a tower in 559. Abbas Ibn Firnas invented the first weight shift aircraft (hang glider) and is also claimed as the inventor of the first manned glider in 875 by fixing feathers to a wooden frame fitted to his arms or back. Written accounts at the time suggest that he made a ten minute flight. Abbas was seriously injured in the resulting crash. The first heavier-than-air (i.e. non-balloon) aircraft to be flown in Europe was Sir George Cayley's series of gliders which achieved brief wing-borne hops from around 1804. Santos Dumont, Otto Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher, John J. Montgomery, and the Wright Brothers are other pioneers who built gliders to develop aviation. After the First World War gliders were built for sporting purposes in Germany and in the United States (Schweizer brothers). The sporting use of gliders rapidly evolved in the 1930s and is now the main application. As their performance improved gliders began to be used to fly cross-country and now regularly fly hundreds or even thousands of kilometers in a day, if the weather is suitable. Military gliders were then developed by a number of countries, particularly during World War II, for landing troops. A glider was even built absolutely secretly by POWs as a potential escape method at Oflag IV-C near the end of the war in 1944. The space shuttle orbiters do not use their engines after re-entry at the end of each spaceflight, and, as you may have guessed, land as gliders.