| Day 2: Flying Walkalong Gliders Instructor: Phil Rossoni Course: Walkalong gliders Date: June 29th 2004 Location: Museum of Science, Boston |
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| On the second day of class we will learn how to fly a walkalong glider, both sustaining and stearing it. This is the most challenging (and entertaining) part of the course. Meteorology for Flight: How does the invisible movement of the air affect the flight of the glider? Even indoors there may be movement of air from heating, ventilation and air conditioning. We will investigate what air currents might exist in the room and how they might affect our flights. Will our own movements in the room make it harder to fly? If a boat has a wake, wouldn't an airplane also have a wake? How would we space our flights to minimize the effect of wake turbulence? Will we also need air traffic control? References: Aircraft Wake Turbulence: http://www.asy.faa.gov/safety_products/wake.htm#problem Preflighting the glider: Before flying, a preflight will be necessary to make sure the glider is trimmed properly. References: Tuning a Walkalong Glider for Flight: http://www.oocities.org/x_surfer2004/tuning.html Sustaining the Glider: We will use a cardboard paddle to create an area of lift under the glider, making it not lose altitude.. Duration Competition: We will hold a duration competition, recording the longest time of three flights for each student. Steering the glider: We will learn how to position the paddle to steer the glider in flight. Gaining Altitude: We will learn how paddle position affects wheather the glider gains or loses altitude. We'll also learn how more altitude gives us more safety margine to recover from turbulence upsets and thus longer flights. Precision Flight: How do we time our flight inputs to get the glider to fly through a doorway? Free Flight Duration Competition: At the end of class we will hold another duration competition, recording the best of three flights for each student. Copyright Phil Rossoni, 6/3/2004 |