sweet glider video

great vid! I don't see myself gettin' in one of those suits, but still ... :D

Great website, too!
 
Was I imagining or was the glider in a constant steep spiral to stay up to speed with the "suit"? It appeared that way.

Either way, I don't see that suit having anywhere near the glide ratio of the real thing.
 
KennyFlys said:
Was I imagining or was the glider in a constant steep spiral to stay up to speed with the "suit"? It appeared that way.

Either way, I don't see that suit having anywhere near the glide ratio of the real thing.
Click to expand...
Looked as if they had a chute on the back of the glider, in addition to having the speed brakes out. I think they were either in a spiral or a steep slip, too. Tony?
 
i didnt look really close but the glider had a tail chute as well as full trailing edge airbrakes. not sure about a slip. i dont think it was spiralling, could be.
 
Why would you want a chute trailing the glider in flight? Isn't that unneeded drag when you might want to keep airspeed and climb for altitude as well?
 
yes you've basically got it. the chute is deployable by the pilot. it is useful in situations where more drag is nice, like landing, or trying to fly formation with a guy in a wingsuit.

looking at the genesis of modern gliders, the period in the late 60s and early 70s is when fiberglass and very low drag gliders became popular. the designers had a lot of trouble getting them slowed down. tail chutes were fairly popular for drag devices. large airbrakes also came along. new gliders rarely have chutes as airbrake design has gotten very well and the new 40 or 50:1 ships have extremely powerful airbrakes.
 
That was SICK! I want to do that!

When I've flown right seat on a couple of dive runs we tried to fly formation with a girl in a wing suit with the Twin Otter... The pilot was flying with his head out the window and the props full forward for drag while I looked out for traffic. We were still a bit too fast and had to break formation.
 
Amazing.The glider looks like a Salto which isn't a particularly high performance glider to start with, but very popular for glider aerobatics. Then he has full spoilers open AND a drag chute. I'm guessing a wing suit doesn't have much of a glide ratio! To see him holding on to the glider's wing tip was the highlight for me.
 
i was wondering what kind of glider that was. Salto fits the bill. Bob Wander has one, few years back he did over 500 kilometers out of Minneapolis, completely overflew Iowa and landed in north central MO. wow!
 
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