Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Reynolds on September 24, 2006, 04:43:12 AM
-
Okay, I am learning to fly in real life. I am too young for a powered solo by far, so I am starting with gliders. I am using 3 aircraft for learning (No, I cannot pick just one, I must use all three) and they are:
Lark
Schweizer 232
Schweizer 233
I have:
3 hours in the Lark (dual)
25 minutes in the Schweizer 232 (dual)
1 hour 45 minutes in the Schweizer 233 (dual)
I am having a particular amount of trouble in the 233, because it has an extreme tendency to roll to the left. I know I can counter it by gaining speed, but is there anything else I can do to prevent it? I am okay with the lark, but I prefer the 232 to the lark because of its stability. I hope to do my solo in the 233 though. Anyone else here have any experience in these aircraft and can give me some tips?
(And for those of you who say powered is better, how many loops have you done in a cessna? Ive done 3 in a lark, as well as some hammerheads, hard stalls, and some formation flying in the 233. Its harder in gliders than you can beleive, especiall when its a Lark you are forming on) For those of you who dont understand these aircraft, lemme re-format this.
Lark= P-51 Fast, maneuverable, great glide ratio
232= P-40E nice and stable, still has great speed, and can do some hard maneuvers
233= C-47. Its a school bus with wings (And the one I fly just happens to be painted bright yellow!)
-
A glider that has a tendency to yaw to the left? These are unpowered gliders, right?
Find a good glider forum on the net, I'm sure they can tell you everything you want to know about the 233.
-
Reynolds I have lots of time in the IS28 Lark and the 2-33 (as in a couple hundred hours in the Lark, just over a hundred hours in the 2-33. First off, if the 2-33 wants to roll on it's own it is very badly rigged or there is something bent. Don't fly it until you know what is causing the problem and you know that it's been fixed.
The Lark is a great airplane. It will do everything the 2-32 will do, but do it better. Given a choice (that I know you don't have unfortunately) I'd recommend you do all your training in this airplane. It has semi-retractable gear (doesn't go all the way into the hull), has speed-limiting air-brakes and flaps. It also is more demanding on the pilot - it's not hard to fly but it does take some skill to fly it well. It also has flight charactaristics similar to some of the fibre-glass pickle forks you'll be flying later in your gliding career - such as it accelerates very quickly, spins with enthusiasm and is a little 'pitchy' (pitchy enough to allow a ham-fisted pilot to get him or herself into PIO's). There's more to learn in the Lark and that will set you up for converting to fibre-glass pickle forks if you decide to carry on with sailplanes and graduate into the higher performance types.
Congrats on flying gliders :). Once you convert to powered aircraft you'll be a better pilot for having flown gliders. :aok
Cheers,
asw
-
Well, im pretty much forced to spend about all my time in the lark. Its pretty much my primary whether I like it or not. Now as to the rolling, I have had several other people who fly same plane and some of the other 233s down there explain things to me, and since we are using ridgelift (We are flying over sea-side clifs which juet air up for spectacular lift 24/7) if you are not going fast enough (We cruise them at 50 knotts) one wing will scrape an updraft, and since the other is moving slowly without a lot of airflow, the one that 'scraped' the lift will be accelerated, causing the plane to roll. Now, I dont have much time in the 233 (My first flight it in was yesterday) and I am "Finding it particularly 'rolly' because its control surfaces are smaller than the Lark I am used to, so when I try my minute corrections subconciously, they dont work because the control surfaces arent direct as much airflow as I am used to" So I am guessing no one else finds them 'Rolly'? It wants to roll to either side, not just the right, its just it rolls more frequently to the right. I do enjoy the lark, I just wish we could retract the gear. We are not allowed to because they think in all of our excitement when we land, we will forget to lower it. And the reason I like the 232 is it seems to have more momentum, especially on landing makeing those easier.
-
Oh, and on the higher perfomance planes, have you heard of the 'Fox'? They are rare, only 12 I think in the USA. Its a hige aerobatic plane. I have flown in it, and even took the controls for a short amount of time. Problem is its an experimental, so we cannot 'train' in it.
-
Originally posted by Reynolds
...and since we are using ridgelift (We are flying over sea-side clifs which juet air up for spectacular lift 24/7) if you are not going fast enough (We cruise them at 50 knotts) one wing will scrape an updraft, and since the other is moving slowly without a lot of airflow, the one that 'scraped' the lift will be accelerated, causing the plane to roll. Now, I dont have much time in the 233 (My first flight it in was yesterday) and I am "Finding it particularly 'rolly' because its control surfaces are smaller than the Lark I am used to, so when I try my minute corrections subconciously, they dont work because the control surfaces arent direct as much airflow as I am used to" So I am guessing no one else finds them 'Rolly'? It wants to roll to either side, not just the right, its just it rolls more frequently to the right.
Ah ok. Flying in ridge lift does explain it.
I do enjoy the lark, I just wish we could retract the gear. We are not allowed to because they think in all of our excitement when we land, we will forget to lower it. And the reason I like the 232 is it seems to have more momentum, especially on landing makeing those easier.
LOL - there are two types of glider pilots - those who have forgotten to put the gear down for landing and those who will eventually forget. Fortunately I'm in the latter camp .
Re: the 2-32. I've only got a couple of hours in it but I didn't like it. It was too big, too heavy, too sluggish and while it had a decent lower mid-range L/D as soon as you started to run with it, it had all the gliding charactaristics of a falling safe. I much prefer the Lark - you've got 1 negative setting on the flaps that make it run extremely well for a large all-metal dual.
Good Lift and soft fields on your flying Reynolds :)
asw
-
Originally posted by detch01
LOL - there are two types of glider pilots - those who have forgotten to put the gear down for landing and those who will eventually forget.
"There are two types of pilots in this world, those who have landed with their undercarriage down and those who will" used to be my sig. In the game, I have landed an SBD on a carrier without lowering my gear because I was so busy talking the guy in front of me through how to land, I forgot to lower it myself! ;)
Thankfully, never done it in real life.
Originally posted by detch01
Good Lift and soft fields on your flying Reynolds :)
Thanks! Same to you!
-
(And for those of you who say powered is better, how many loops have you done in a cessna? Ive done 3 in a lark, as well as some hammerheads, hard stalls, and some formation flying in the 233. Its harder in gliders than you can beleive, especiall when its a Lark you are forming on) For those of you who dont understand these aircraft, lemme re-format this. [/I]
I have done over 50 loops total, spins, hamerheads, rolls what else do you want all in a Cessna 150 aerobate. Hey and I took off all by my self, then landed at another airport and took off again, lol
But congrats on the glider training, IT WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER PILOT!!!!
-
this might be solution
CRABBING- definition yaw of aircraft not done by pilot but by slight wind
BUMP-definition aircraft nose move up down not by pilot movement up or down
SIDESLIP-definition aircraft rolls it self left or right
these are some of the stuff you'll learn in the principles of flight good luck with the flying :O
-
Originally posted by nick172
(And for those of you who say powered is better, how many loops have you done in a cessna? Ive done 3 in a lark, as well as some hammerheads, hard stalls, and some formation flying in the 233. Its harder in gliders than you can beleive, especiall when its a Lark you are forming on) For those of you who dont understand these aircraft, lemme re-format this. [/I]
I have done over 50 loops total, spins, hamerheads, rolls what else do you want all in a Cessna 150 aerobate. Hey and I took off all by my self, then landed at another airport and took off again, lol
But congrats on the glider training, IT WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER PILOT!!!!
WTFG GO MATE!!! you are one of those few who have done things like that. That must be excellent. And thanks! Thanks also spitbrit. I got lucky, I only pay $10 a tow for a 1/2 hour MINIMUM flight. Occasionally I can get a full hour for that $10, and I didnt have to pay any other fees!
-
Alright, here are some of my flights today. All of these pictures are taken at my home field, Dillingham Airfield, in Hawaii (It was a particularly rainy day though). First up is our insane local jump-pilot (We share the airfield with two parachuting companies, and one of their pilots insists on a 'Low Pass' in his King Air at least once a week, regardless of what the 'Tower' -Unicom- says) The plane is actually less than 4 feet above the ground, but because of my angle, it looks much higher.
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/000_0070.jpg)
Here are two pictures of my instructors 'Baby', an incredibly rare, and unbeleiveably high performance glider, a 'Fox' (There are only 12 in the United States)
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/000_0065.jpg)
My instructor has already purchased, and plans to affix next month, two Turbo-Jet Engines to the sides of this aircraft! Here is a side view:
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/000_0066.jpg)
Here is my favorite aircraft of the three I train in, a Schweizer SGS2-33A:
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/000_0067.jpg)
Here is me flying (Not quite a solo, I still had an instructor, but he didnt doa nything but throw toilet paper out of the window, I was flying all on my own, including take-off and landing), first the take-off (Towed by a Mercedes Benz sedan!)
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/000_0082.jpg)
The window in the above picture is open because the instructor was planning on dropping bags of talcom powder as we took off to splater the auto-tow runway (Which no one but us ever uses) with white powder, but he also dropped a roll of toilet paper near the mountains (This is a game pilots here play, trying to get it to unroll all the way before it hits the ground)
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/000_0083.jpg)
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/000_0084.jpg)
And last, the landing (That concrete in the back is part of a world war two hard-stand that housed both bombers, B-24 Liberators and B-17E Flying Fortresses, and fighters, P-40s and P-51s) :
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/000_0085.jpg)
-
How bout some photo's of the Lark? All I saw was the tail end .
Looks fun.
Cheers,
asw
-
Originally posted by detch01
How bout some photo's of the Lark? All I saw was the tail end .
Looks fun.
Cheers,
asw
Lark is off the flight line due to damages. After a rope break I was flying last week, the tire popped, and sadly, the wheel bolt froze, so we are in the process of replaceing the whole wheel section. Im going out there again next week, so I will get a picture for you. There is also some interesting stuff in the Hardstands, I will see if I can get pictures of those. I would have some of the Fox doing aerobatics, but my camera died before he took off.