Posted: November 19th, 2022

A glider

A glider is a special type of an aircraft that does not use engine while gliding is a recreational activity and competitive airport in which pilots fly the gliders .When it comes to flight, a glider has tree forces acting to it as compared to the four forces that act on a powered aircraft they are designed using a smooth skin in order to allow the plane to glide more easily through the air and hence are constructed using aluminum with structural aluminum skins( Iscold, Pereira, & Torres, 2010). There are different types of gliders which includes the paper airplanes which are the cheapest and simplest to build. . The paper airplane is also easy to fly. There are also the hang-gliders that are piloted aircraft with clothe wings. Some of the hang-glider are said to look like kits while others are said to resemble the maneuverable parachutes. The third type of glider is the sailplane gliders that have standard aircraft parts, flight control system, and its make but lacks the engine. There is also the space shuttle glider. It is a rock engine that is used only during a liftoff (Leonard, Paley, Davis, Fratantoni, Lekien, & Zhang, 2010). Lastly we have the Balsa wood or the Styrofoam toy glider. It is said to be the most affordable glider used by students in training and having fun while learning aerodynamics.
For a glider to take off, or to fly, it must generate lift which will oppose its weight and in order to generate lift, a glider must move through the air. The movement of the glider through the air is also said to engender haul. The thrust in the engine in a powered aircraft opposes drag. A drag is said to be a mechanical or an aerodynamic force that opposes an aircraft motion through air and is generated by each and every part of an airplane (Renouard-Vallet, Kallo, Friedrich, Schirmer, Saballus, & Schmithals, 2011). It is spawned by the contact and interactions of a solid body with a fluid. If there is not fluid, drag cannot be generated. However, a glider lacks engine generates thrust. By lacking the thrust, this means the drag is unopposed and hence the glider quickly slows down until it can no longer generate enough lift which will oppose the weight. By this condition, the glider ends up falling down to the earth.
Gliders use the same control surface as the normal airplanes to control the direction of the plane. The control surface is made up of ailerons, elevators, and rudders. The Ailerons is involved in controlling the rolling motion of the glider. It is placed on the opposite side of the glider on each side and if the pilot wants to roll the plane to the right he will definitely use the rolling stick on the right side. The elevator is a movable horizontal wing structure on the tail and its function is to control the pitch of the glider. The rudder is a movable vertical wing structure that controls the yaw of the glider (Renouard-Vallet, Saballus,Schmithals, Schirmer, Kallo, & Friedrich, 2010).
Paper airplanes and Balsa gliders generate the velocity needed for their flight by throwing the aircraft. A catapult made from rubber bands and a tow line is employed on large Balsa gliders to generate velocity to some initial attitude (Iscold, Pereira, & Torres, 2010). The hang-glider pilots are often seen running and jumping off from the side of a cliff or a hill to generate initial velocity or to get going. Additionally, some sailplanes and hang-gliders are towed aloft by a powered aircraft and then cut loose to begin the glider. The powered aircraft is said to give the gliders a certain amount of potential energy which is the needed velocity. Gliders are for all time descending relative to the air in which they are flying (Leonard, Paley, Davis, Fratantoni, Lekien, & Zhang, 2010).
There is the question on how the gliders stay aloft for hours if they are always descending. The question is answered by the fact that gliders are designed to be very effective and efficient to descend very slowly. If a pilot can locate an updraft which is said to be a pocket of rising air which is faster than the glider is descending, then the glider can actually gain attitude and hence result to increase in its velocity which is the potential energy (De Voogt, & van Doorn, 2010). A pocket of air which enhances increase in velocity is found when wind is blowing on a hill or a mountain and has to raise and climb over it. Updrafts are also found over dark land masses that absorb heat from the sun. This act is explained by the heat of the ground warming surrounding air which cause to rising of the air. Hot air or hot pockets are called thermals (Iscold, Pereira, & Torres, 2010). Large air birds which include the owls and hawks are usually seen circling a thermal. They do this to gain attitude without using energy to flat their wings which is the case act that gliders conduct. All types of gliders are subjected to forces of weight, lift and drag.
A successful ling range glider is made up of electrical glider. A glider is dependant by nature especially to air and hence the material that makes the long range glider determines its success rate in flight.

References
De Voogt, A. J., & van Doorn, R. R. (2010).Sports aviation accidents: fatality and aircraft specificity.Aviation, space, and environmental medicine, 81(11), 1033-1036.
Iscold, P., Pereira, G. A., & Torres, L. A. (2010).Development of a hand-launched small UAV for ground reconnaissance.Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Transactions on, 46(1), 335-348.
Leonard, N. E., Paley, D. A., Davis, R. E., Fratantoni, D. M., Lekien, F., & Zhang, F. (2010).Coordinated control of an underwater glider fleet in an adaptive ocean sampling field experiment in Monterey Bay.Journal of Field Robotics, 27(6), 718-740.