Setting the Barometric Gauge in a Glider or Sailplane

Video Transcript

Hi! My name is Gene; I'm glider flight instructor on behalf of Expert Village. This time we're going to fly a left hand pattern through the runway. Last time we flew a right hand pattern. We're currently at 1200 feet. We'll enter the initial point of the pattern at 800 feet, turn base at 600, and turn final at 400 feet of altitude. But now we're circling down through 1100 feet. When I get to 800 feet, then I'll start running my pattern from the airport. How do you know the altitude that you want to do that at? That's a set altitude. You always do it at 800, 600, and 400, and your instruments are set to ground level. When you're reading 1000 feet on the altimeter, you're 1000 feet above the ground. Okay, so you don't set the barimeter, the barometric pressure on the gage? No, not when you're flying at this airport. Now, if you're going cross country and you're going to land in a different airport, then you set the sea level altitude. Then you have to know the altitude of each airport that you're going to to know how to be 800 feet above it when you start your pattern. So you have to do some free flight planning when you're dancing cross country to know the altitude of the airport where you're landing and the parametric pressure so your altitude reached correctly. If you take off from an airport and plan on landing there, you just set it to 0? We set it to 0 just for the convenience and the fact that we're in a learning environment. We don't want the student distracted with trying to figure out what altitude he should be at. He's always at the altitude that's right. Now, we're 800 feet. We're turning down wind. Down wind; so now we're parallel with the run way. Parallel with run way, going with the wind to our back. Then when we turn base, the wind will be blowing sideways across the airplane. And when we turn final, we will be headed into the wind for the lowest landing speed. Now we're getting ready to turn base at 600 feet. We make a 90 degree turn to the left. Keeping the airport in sight, making sure there's nobody else coming in, going in at the same time we are. What's that control? If you can see, there's a spoiler out. That adjusts are glide slope by adding an additional drag to the airplane airframe. It causes to sink faster without changing our air speed so we can land exactly where we want to on the runway. There's one on top too right? There's one on top, one on bottom on both wings, so they all operate together. Now we're lining up with the runway. On final. I've got a little crosswind from the right. I've got my right wing down a little bit to stay centered over the runway. So you can do that or you can do a slip right? That is a slip. You're cramming that one time when you came down weren't you? Yeah, but right now I'm just working to stay right on the runway. And then this is the flair where you hold it off. Wait for it to land and then you can apply the break when you're ready to stop. And it stops fairly quickly.

Watch these related videos

• 
  Setting the Barometric Gauge in a Glider or Sailplane

  playlist Views: 2,161

• 
  Landing a Glider or Sailplane

  playlist Views: 2,400

• 
  Tips for a Landing Approach in Hang Gliding

  playlist Views: 1,675

• 
  Airplane Landing for Pilot Training

  playlist Views: 3,894

• 
  Formation Flying with Gliders

  playlist Views: 1,669

• 
  Ground Speed & Wind Speed While Flying a Glider

  playlist Views: 1,596

Community Members who...

• Favorited this Video
• Rated This Video

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? Be the first to rate this video!

Top Tags