Glider crash - Winter Haven, FL

That does appear to have an engine that pops up from the middle of the fuselage. From what I read, once those are raised, they create a large amount of drag, basically you are taking your 30-40:1 glide ratio and turning it into a Piper Arrow rock, then there is a checklist to get that propeller started which I heard takes at least 15 seconds. Likely it uses fuel, some are electric.
 
Maybe not an engine failure but rather an inability to get the engine started.

Earlier gliders with aux engines used Solo and Hirth 2-stroke engines which at times didn't want to start. This type uses a small Wankel engine and I have no knowledge on how reliably they fire up.

Unless it popped out during the crash , it appears that the bay doors were open and the engine unstowed.
 
My glider has no engine, but in training I was warned that motor-gliders should not rely on an engine starting-up to “save” a low flight. As others already mentioned, it’s a big gamble to deploy the engine-pod if it doesn’t start you’ve made your situation a lot worse.

I’ll add context that when gliding at-altitude, everything gets cold-soaked. The sun from the canopy warms your upper body, but your feet can be freezing.

The best configurations are those “Folding electric sustainers” where the folding prop is already at the nose, and electric motors are much more reliable to restart from cold.
 
ChopAndDrop said:
I’ll add context that when gliding at-altitude, everything gets cold-soaked. The sun from the canopy warms your upper body, but your feet can be freezing.
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Temps here have been in the mid-90s all week. He would have needed to be in the flight levels to get any meaningful cold soak.
 
From what I can tell it is an electric Sustainer or Self launch (I don’t know if it supports self launch). So power failure or fuel exhaustion potentially might have been a factor.

Brian
 
Half Fast said:
Temps here have been in the mid-90s all week. He would have needed to be in the flight levels to get any meaningful cold soak.
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Maybe not really “flight levels” but yeah …. Looking at the Winds Aloft today, at KGIF going from Ground to Freezing is around 15k feet. So unless they were flying with Oxygen….
 
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Country Flier said:
ADS-B track here...slow descent, lots of turns...I'm not a glider pilot, so I don't know if this is normal or not.
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It’s Hard for me to put any faith in FlightAware for a Glider, most don’t even have Transponders, much less ADS-b out.

Eg. it’s missing the whole first part of the flight, only catching a few minutes at the end.

RyanShort1 said:
Not the right kind of turns for thermaling… ?
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We can only speculate, but…. Looking for lift and not finding any.
My experience is that once I get at-or-below 2k Ft AGL, it’s really hard to find any working thermal.
 
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Country Flier said:
Yes rotary, and it’s also referred as a 4 stroke.

Austro Engine AE50R - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
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It's a matter of terminology and definitions, trying to make one term apply to two very different types of engines. The Wankel is a 4-cycle engine (intake, compression, power, exhaust) but it achieves it similarly to a 2-stroke engine in that there is power "stroke" for every shaft rotation. That's why a Wankel has roughly twice the hp vs displacement of a 4-stroke piston engine.

I can see why it's a good choice for a self-launched glider. Wankels have poor fuel efficiency, but that's a minor concern for this application. They produce excellent power for their weight and size, both important in a glider.
 
Half Fast said:
there is power "stroke" for every shaft rotation. That's why a Wankel has roughly twice the hp vs displacement of a 4-stroke piston engine.
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Actually, three combustion events per revolution of the rotor...to be pedantic. :biggrin: They produce a very distinctive exhaust tone. Daryl Drummond did all the rebuilds on the 13-B/13-B msp engines that we ran in our race cars. Love/hate relationship with those engines.
 
robin ardoin said:
Actually, three combustion events per revolution of the rotor...to be pedantic. :biggrin: They produce a very distinctive exhaust tone. Daryl Drummond did all the rebuilds on the 13-B/13-B msp engines that we ran in our race cars. Love/hate relationship with those engines.
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I loved them for racing. Couldn’t over-rev the things, and the cost of an engine rebuild was a small fraction of that for a piston engine. Plus Mazda Motorsports would sell me parts for less than dealer cost.
 
Half Fast said:
I loved them for racing. Couldn’t over-rev the things, and the cost of an engine rebuild was a small fraction of that for a piston engine. Plus Mazda Motorsports would sell me parts for less than dealer cost.
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That is one thing I will say about Mazda, they supported motorsports very well from making parts available/affordable and supporting driver development in closed and open wheel road racing. John Doonan was one hell of a fellow when it came to supporting junior drivers. I can't say enough good about him and Mazda.
 
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