PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Numbers in a glide
View Single Post
Old 31st May 2018, 07:09
  #8 (permalink)  
hoduka
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: in a 5 m/s thermal
Age: 30
Posts: 46
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Imagine it as a triangle.
On the first one, your forward speed is 50 m/s, and the vertical speed is 2 m/s.
You are heavier, therefore the optimum is say, 100m/s, the correspodning vertical speed is 4m/s. So the ratio is still 25:1(you will land at the same spot, altough you will get there faster), and as both sides of the triangle enlarge by the same factor, the angle should be the same. So the angle will be the same, and the gradient is the same as the glide ratio (expressed in other values) so yes, they will be the same.

Hope its getting clearer.
hoduka is offline