- 58 minutes ago
For educational purposes
Space age materials and modern aerodynamic designs come together in aircraft for those who find exhilaration flying low and slow, whether powered by small engines or sailing on air currents alone.
Featured Aircraft:
- Grob G109 motor glider,
- Grob G103a Twin II sailplane,
- Schweizer SGS 2-32 glider
Space age materials and modern aerodynamic designs come together in aircraft for those who find exhilaration flying low and slow, whether powered by small engines or sailing on air currents alone.
Featured Aircraft:
- Grob G109 motor glider,
- Grob G103a Twin II sailplane,
- Schweizer SGS 2-32 glider
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01Hi, I'm Neil Armstrong. Join me for an adventure through time.
00:54I'm Neil Armstrong. Join me for an adventure through time.
00:59This is the story of achieving flight with larger and larger machines that can fly faster and higher.
01:06There are aircraft that have developed in a different direction.
01:10They fly at low speeds. They're lightweight.
01:14They're made of space-age materials and use the most modern aerodynamic designs possible.
01:20This is the world of gliders, ultralights, and light aircraft.
01:24Machines designed to recapture the feeling and exhilaration of the first aviators.
01:54Many aviation pioneers, both foolhardy and daring alike, risked life and limb to be the first to fly.
02:00In their own inventions.
02:02Although these early recorded efforts bring smiles to our faces,
02:06for some of the daredevil pilots, these were their last flights, not their first.
02:20After its launch, a glider comes back to Earth continuously.
02:24It's a heavier-than-air machine constantly influenced by gravity.
02:28Its wings develop enough lift to keep it from dropping out of the sky.
02:32Getting these early gliders into the air was another matter.
02:35Early pioneers used everything from buildings to towers and cliffs to sheer human power to test their devices.
02:43Daring or crazy, they pressed on to the edges of non-powered flight.
02:48For some time, they'd be fighting to learn how to stabilize and control their contraptions.
02:56One of the success stories is that of German Otto Lilienthal in the late 1800s.
03:01Like many before him, Lilienthal believed that studying and observing birds would reveal the secrets of flight.
03:08He was an engineer, so his creations were well-constructed and strong.
03:12He was one of those building jumpers, using his hangar for the purpose,
03:16and he eventually built a 50-foot mound nearby.
03:20He flew 18 different types of gliders.
03:24Lilienthal's work would influence many pioneers in aviation, including the Wright brothers.
03:28He was getting close to the development of control surfaces on his gliders,
03:33and no doubt would have made many more contributions,
03:36had he not been killed as the result of a crash in 1896.
03:42That same year, Octave Chanute began testing his multi-plane glider concept,
03:47which would be a forerunner of the Wright brothers' efforts.
03:50They'd be greatly influenced by Chanute's work and his book,
03:54The Progress of Flying Machines, dated 1894.
03:57What you see is a contemporary recreation of Chanute's biplane design.
04:03Chanute's gliders still lacked any control surfaces,
04:06an element that would make gliders safer and which would be a necessity for powered flight.
04:11The Wright brothers would use his ideas and add their own to create a series of glider experiments.
04:17With bigger and bigger gliders, the Wrights learned to fly.
04:22Those experiments led to a glider with a controllable wing and a rudder.
04:26The next step would be the Wright Flyer No. 1,
04:29which would make the first controlled and powered flight in December of 1903.
04:34In the peaceful breezes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the flying machine was born.
04:39And little more than a decade later, it would be an instrument of terror in the war to end all
04:45wars.
04:51After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles restricted the defeated Germany from having an air force.
04:57Designers worked on civilian aircraft instead, perfecting their work with further development of gliders.
05:03Young German pilots, like 25-year-old Hermann Goering,
05:07continued to hone their aviation skills in these aircraft.
05:10Flying became a passion.
05:13Much of what was learned about aircraft design in the years after the First World War,
05:17would be used in the next war Germany was to fight.
05:23The glider went to battle in World War II for both the Axis powers and the Allies.
05:29Germany developed troop-carrying gliders.
05:31The Gigant had a wing spread of 181 feet and could accommodate up to 130 soldiers.
05:58The Allies used gliders on D-Day to land troops behind enemy lines.
06:03The purpose was clear.
06:05Gliders like the airspeed Horsa with 25 armed troops and a crew of two
06:10could land quietly in the French countryside and give the Allies some element of surprise.
06:23In the early 1960s, research for the American space program would eventually lead to the first contemporary hang gliders.
06:30NASA scientist Francis Regalo came up with a rigid folding frame and a fabric wing.
06:37His design was incorporated in a research vehicle called the Parasev.
06:42This craft resembled an overgrown tricycle, a 14 square meter Regalo peril wing made of Dacron.
06:49It was thought his wing shape could be used to fly spacecraft to an airplane-like landing.
06:55Test pilots used to the sensitivity of jets found the little craft tricky, but fun to fly.
07:04The Regalo Delta wing has evolved into many different sport glider designs.
07:10And hang gliding is now a sport enjoyed around the world.
07:13Although lightweight materials and aerodynamic design fashioned the first modern hang gliders,
07:19the technique for launching them has not changed greatly from Otto Lilienthal's death-defying leaps.
07:30Hang gliders recently enjoyed a new popularity when advancements in material and aerodynamics became available.
07:37When some hang glider enthusiasts attempted to stretch their glide with a chainsaw engine and a propeller strapped on their
07:45backs,
07:46a new kind of a machine was born.
07:48The so-called ultralight aircraft.
07:59There are those who simply prefer a high precipice, a good wind, and the thrill of the launch.
08:05That old-fashioned daring do is still alive and well in some of us.
08:10In the last two decades, we've learned an awful lot about flying low and slow.
08:14Though there is some element of risk, modern hang gliders are controllable,
08:19usually by shifting one's weight and maneuvering the wing.
08:27Hang glider pilots like John Moody hated the prospect of carrying their flying machines back to the top of a
08:33cliff.
08:34So he strapped a chainsaw engine to his.
08:37Others took lawnmower engines or go-kart engines and mounted them to their one-man kites.
08:42The launches could now be made from ground level.
08:53Appropriately, they are called motorized hang gliders and in more developed versions known as ultralights.
09:00They do have control surfaces and ultralight enthusiast Karl Mahler explains how simple they are to fly.
09:07The original ones came out, they had no wheels on them and you took off on your feet and you
09:14landed on your feet.
09:17The first generation ultralights had a single surface high lift wing on them and they'd come off the ground very
09:24rapidly.
09:27This is a second generation ultralight. As you can see, it has double surface wings.
09:32But to give it a little bit more speed, we've modified the pods, we've evolved to three-bladed props.
09:44And we've started hanging parachutes on these for safety reasons.
09:59The third generation ultralights, they put covering on them, they put fully enclosed canopies on them so that they're a
10:06lot more comfortable and you get a lot less sound, engine noise and the comfort level is much greater.
10:15You can make a longer distance flight and not be all beat up by the wind.
10:23Because they're so light, the best time to fly ultralights is in the morning or evening when winds are usually
10:29light and variable.
10:30Neil Armstrong corralled a group of enthusiasts at the local airport in San Ynez, California for a chat about their
10:37favorite sport.
10:39You fellows are all ultralight pilots, right?
10:43That's right.
10:43How long has the ultralight movement been in existence?
10:47Well, it started in the mid-70s, 75, 76.
10:53How'd you start, Carl?
10:54Well, there was a group of us flying hang gliders down in San Diego and one of the guys put
11:00an engine on the back of a hang glider and we heard this horrible noise.
11:04And we were all purist hang glider pilots at the time and we just, we didn't like all of the
11:10guys.
11:10Thought that was abomination, huh?
11:11Yeah, right, yeah.
11:12It interrupted the purity of the sport.
11:14Right.
11:14Many of your ultralights are two cycle engines, right?
11:19Yes.
11:19Yeah.
11:21Mine has one cylinder.
11:22One cylinder and two cycles.
11:24Two cycles, right?
11:24Mix the oil and the gas together just like a, what, a lawnmower or a boat motor.
11:30Yeah.
11:31Okay.
11:31What's the most fun about flying the ultralight?
11:34I think being out in the open air and, you know, you don't have a destination, you're just up there
11:42for fun.
11:42Just enjoying the scenery, huh?
11:45Tell me about the regulations under which you fly.
11:48Well, we're covered under part 103 of the FARs.
11:53Okay.
11:53And essentially our main points is the weight of the aircraft, which is 254 pounds.
12:00Now that the empty weight or the loaded?
12:01That's the empty weight.
12:02That's 254, empty weight.
12:04Empty weight.
12:05And then there is an allowance for parachute so that you can be a little heavier than that.
12:10And for some of the safety equipment, they've come up a little.
12:14They've allowed you a little more weight loss.
12:16A little leeway, right.
12:17And then we have to carry five gallons of fuel.
12:22And, of course, you can't throw anything out of the airplane.
12:26There's a lot of common sense things that were all put into part 103 that are covered in 91
12:32and most of your regular flight regulations.
12:35Most people solo in about 10 hours, and that's really the beginning.
12:40And it's a sport not unlike diving or hang gliding in which the members who participate help the other people
12:50to go on cross countries, learn how to navigate.
12:54There's a lot of regulations that pertain to ultralights, like you can't fly into a controlled airport.
13:01Sure.
13:01There's a lot of air space you have to stay out of.
13:03And you learn those things, as I did.
13:06And Sam's learning from guys like Carl and Fred who've been doing it longer.
13:31It's a never-ending process of learning.
13:34Practice.
13:35Practice and learning, huh?
13:36I think that goes with all of aviation, and that's what makes it such a fantastic sport.
13:55Early on, there were an alarmingly high rate of fatal accidents in ultralights among first-time flyers and inexperienced pilots.
14:03The safety record was sad.
14:06With some self-regulation and improvements, and reliability in later designs, safety has improved.
14:13And operated in little or no wind, and with the proper training,
14:16a pilot can affordably enjoy the freedoms of aviation
14:19and experience what those early glider experimenters could only dream about.
14:33Ultralight's popularity made some manufacturers aware that there were people who wanted to fly slow and low.
14:42Enjoying the landscaping, just as the early aviators did.
14:47The market for an entirely new type of aircraft came into being.
14:51The step between the crude and open-air ultralight and a more conventional small aircraft.
15:04The latest ultralights approach light aircraft in sophistication.
15:09There are biplanes and ultralights with totally enclosed cockpits.
15:13These have led to other kinds of more complex home-builds and gyrocopters.
15:18Under U.S. federal law, those too heavy or too fast to be considered ultralights are classified as experimental aircraft,
15:26a designation which requires a certified pilot to fly them.
15:40Another development in gliders is this Grove 109, a glider with a motor, called appropriately a motor glider.
15:48It's a light aircraft, designed to fly with its engine turned off.
15:52There's a conventional takeoff, and then at altitude the pilot does the unthinkable.
15:58We're getting high enough here now that we can think about shutting the engine off.
16:03We have 1,500 feet above the ground here.
16:06They'll give us 500 feet to play with it. We're right close to the airport, so it's fine.
16:10Now that's the ignition switch. We're going to shut it down entirely now.
16:13So push that down, and we'll feel the engine go off.
16:17And once it's down to an idle, we can stop the prop altogether.
16:22There we go. So now we're strictly a sailplane.
16:24Mm-hmm.
16:27The owner of this Grove 109 is Rob Wilkinson, Soaring Adventures, Wilton, Connecticut.
16:33Terrific.
16:34And down again.
16:39What a beautiful feeling. You see the seagulls doing this all the time.
16:52There's a breed of aviator that still appreciates totally unpowered flight,
16:57and take gliders to heights their ancestors could only imagine.
17:01Neil Armstrong flew a glider on a visit to Santa Inez Airport in California.
17:05Most gliders descend to Earth continuously under the influence of gravity.
17:10The exception are sailplanes.
17:12They descend too, but have such large wing areas.
17:15In respect to their weight, they can stay aloft much longer.
17:19They soar and rise on the thermals and updrafts that permeate the atmosphere.
17:23The record distance for a sailplane flight is 908 miles.
17:28They're some of the most aerodynamically efficient aircraft ever designed.
17:33Neil had the good fortune to fly a sailplane, too, and talk with two sailplane pilots
17:37at the Skylark North Glider School of Mountain Valley Airport in California.
17:42Glider instructor Gary Layton and U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School instructor Terry Markovich.
17:50Gary, what makes a good day for sailplane flying?
17:53What makes a good day for sailplane flying is lots of air that's going up faster than sailplanes are settling
17:58down.
17:59Hey, that's a great answer.
18:00You usually see that with nice puffy clouds like we've been seeing today.
18:05We didn't seem to snag that, but in the summertime, those cloud bases will be up around 14,000, 15
18:12,000 feet.
18:13How does the Air Force use a sailplane?
18:16We use them at the Test Pilot School as an introduction to a new environment.
18:21First of all, you have engine-less flight, and so that's a new environment that most Air Force pilots aren't
18:26used to.
18:28And also as an introduction and a build-up to our spin training that we have.
18:33We initially take the pilots out, and they fly in the 233s and get a chance to solo those,
18:40and then we bring them into the higher-class airplanes, and they build up to a spin program.
18:45We introduce them to spins, spin characteristics, before they proceed on doing spin and high alpha in faster-moving airplanes.
18:54Yeah.
18:54That turns out to be a pretty good introduction to spin because these machines will spin pretty well.
18:59Yes, they do a very good job.
19:01Now, Gary, you've been involved in flight research a lot of your career and have worked with very high-speed
19:10aircraft in all kinds of configurations.
19:13From an aerodynamic point of view, what's of particular interest to a sailplane pilot or designer?
19:20Basically, we're looking for low drag and efficient production of lift.
19:25In other words, low drag again.
19:27And we get that from specifically designed airfoils, very smooth contours, long wings provided, and small cross-sectional area of
19:39the fuselage.
19:40So low drag makes them lose altitude very sparingly for the amount of distance that they can glide forward.
19:52Let's go flying in a sailplane with an instructor and get a perspective even the student pilot does not experience.
20:01Technically, any heavier-than-air craft without an engine or an engine running is a glider.
20:07Sailplanes are gliders too, but can stay aloft much longer.
20:10They're designed to ride on air currents and warm rising air.
20:14The sailplane is connected to its towplane via a detachable cable.
20:18Early gliders were towed by automobiles, but towplanes are safer and preferable.
20:25At a safe altitude and after agreement between the two aircraft pilots, a cable release in the cockpit of the
20:32sailplane is activated.
20:33The towplane and its cable immediately execute a left turn.
20:38The glider immediately makes a right turn.
20:41This whole procedure is very safe when accomplished by two practiced and skilled pilots.
21:01German inventors were at the forefront of early glider designs.
21:05Otto Lilienthal would be proud to know that the most sophisticated gliders in the world today have German names, like
21:12Grobe and Schweitzer.
21:13They're not inexpensive, like their distant cousins, the ultralights.
21:17But they give their pilots countless hours of enjoyment.
21:21Gliders, no matter what form they take, offer their owners excitement like none other.
21:40Flying can still be fun.
21:42Join me again next time on First Flights.
21:48We'll see you next time on Thursday, just as you get the next coupleovies.
21:50We'll see you next time they catch up.
21:51We'll see you wrapped up in and over.
22:14You can find us.
22:14The
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