Lucky_Chevy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 9:35 pm
Thanks Jono,
The information that ships with Wills Wing gliders has a bit of information on tuning but it's really simplistic compared to Moyes and tends to focus on correcting turns. That said, I've never had any issue flying Wills Wing gliders in their stock configuration and have never had a reason to deviate which is why I was curious.
Thanks for the info on making wingtips.
We discussed getting more dealers, mentors and pilots better trained in tuning. I have seen good information in Aeros and Icaro2000 manuals as well as Moyes and WW manuals and blog posts. But even with printed tuning guidance I still overhear complaints by pilots about their gliders from any manufacturer. When I used to ride a road bike I'd see people on expensive bikes that were ill-fitted and offer to make a few simple adjustments on the side of the path. Afterwards they'd say how their pain went away or how much better the bike handled or rode. A lot of this is the same. Even though everything you'd ever want to know about tuning and fitting a road bike can be found online for free, there may be an absence of riders using the available information. I think it helps if pilots or cyclists are walked through the process either in person or by video and get comfortable with the idea.
Obviously, there are different degrees and risks to this process. There are repairs, inspections, modifications, trimming and tuning. Each aspect of change to a glider's settings or components involves a different degree of consequence or potential improvement to performance and handling. Risk/Reward if you will. But the process could be demystified better.
Remember, the most perfectly tuned glider can easily be mis-assembled and turned from a masterpiece into a headache by the smallest error. That's just the process of glider assembly/pre-flight and nothing further. I made two minor errors on my last flight when I neglected to put the pitot tube into my vario and had no airspeed indicator as a result. I also neglected to clear the zipper rope pulley inside my harness when I installed the boot cone extender. For the first few minutes I could not close the lower zipper in flight but eventually got it aligned by yanking the rope. I didn't really need the airspeed to fly but needed it for evaluation documenting.
I guess there is a certain about of risk by publishing too much information on tuning then having pilots make the wrong adjustments as a result. It's good to have a friend, dealer or club mentor who can evaluate a glider and either trim or tune it to suit the pilot or at least give some feedback on it.
BTW - A friend of mine used my pattern and materials to build raked tips for his RX 3.0 and loves what it did to the handling and way it flew at every speed and VG setting.