Club House > Club Talk
Glider A & B Crets.
Flamingo Flier:
Been busy so it been a while since I logged on and I have only this evening read Appendix L for the A/B cert tests.
I know i'm weird and all that but..............
How can any question relating to a propellor / motor / engine be applicable to a glider?
A glider has none of these things. A plane with power is a power plane - the clue is in the name. Good luck explaining to the judge that the two wheeled device you were riding is a bicycle even though it had an engine.
JIM
PS I've been flying gliders for about 27 years and have never flown a plane with an engine. A new guy arrived with an electric model one day and needed someone to test fly it and help him through his first few flights. We, and he, had a couple of satisfactory flights with it - maybe half an hour or so. Never plugged the motor in however..........
I wonder if he charged the ballast before he flew it again!
Flamingo Flier:
Hmmmm
Just realised my bicycle analogy was pretty bad. I suppose some electric bicycles are still called bicycles. I should have read it over before I posted.
A powered plane is still a power plane however
Jim
Happy Days:
Ha! Don't they say that "If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then it is a duck." :)
I'm not so sure the world is quite as black & white as that Jim. :-\
I'm thinking that as Powered models are normally flown with some degree of power applied virtually all of their flight time, and Powered Gliders only use their prop thrust to obtain height and spend the rest of their flight time gliding, I'd say a hybrid is a glider more than it's a powered model. Although I take your point that hybrids do have a motor & prop their aspect ratio and small flight battery lend the them towards gliding far more than powered flight wouldn't you say?
Keith
Flamingo Flier:
Hi Keith,
Good to hear your voice.
Yes I agree that as I get older many things that were black and white are now many shades of grey. As I started my working life I knew the right way to do things. 30 or 40 years later and some of these early jobs no longer pleased me. I could see things that could have been done better. White was now grey. Black was also grey as I could see some merit in the wrong way of doing things. It was time to retire. (That is why the best soldiers are very young - they know they are right and do not see the other side of the argument)
But life is better when things are black and white and many things are clear cut. Pregnancy for example - or death!
In my eyes a plane is also one thing or the other. A plane with power is a powered plane.
I hope to see you next weekend.
JIM
PS There is no value judgement whatsoever in my differentiation between powered and unpowered
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