Question: Two of the 15-meter German fiberglass ships differ in aspect ratio by more than four points. Should this difference alone influence my decision on which product to purchase?
Moffat: No.
Goodhart: I'm not sure which way he thinks it might influence it.
Smith: A lot depends on what the aspect ratios are, but I think most of us have been using too high an aspect ratio. It seems that if they are in the range of 20 to 24 they are both pretty good.
Question: Discuss the aspects of getting a sailplane from Europe to the U.S. Air vs. sea, paperwork, hints, etc.
Answer: (Byars) The most delightful way is to have it flown over. Seaboard World will do a real nice job, but It's $1200 freight for a Kestrel. There was no crating charge though, It was very nice, Since you save the crating charge the cost was reduced to $200 or $300 above the sea cost.
Moffat: I have had gliders brought over by practically all ways, one time or another. I am inclined to recommend very highly at the moment getting your glider brought over in a container. People involved don't care very much about crates, but containers cost a lot of money and they aren't going to run a forklift through a container. I just talked to Bill Foley before coming down here. He said he just got four Cirruses in a container. He was absolutely pleased with the handling and all that. He said he could have gotten six or seven in one container.
Question: When you speak of container, this is surface transportation, right.
Moffat: Yes, by sea. The smaller gliders can sit in a 30-footer. I believe it's a standard 30-foot cargo container. They come in 20's, 30's, and 40's. My standard Cirrus and Mac Roman's standard Cirrus are coming next Sunday together in a container. Even with the low utilization of two ships, it turns out to be materially cheaper than having them crated. Also, you don't get the forklift holes.
Question: Where do you pick it up? What East coast port?
Moffat: Elizabethport, which is much better than downtown New York for pickup. I don't have the figures yet on what you save. My guess is probably in the neighborhood of $100. It would depend a little on where you pick it up as well as when it arrives. There are some union problems on that, too.
Question: How do you go about deciding how to set your speed ring?
Goodhart: I think it's a question of setting it rather than setting the marks on it. Setting it is simply a question of estimating how strong your next thermal is going to be. If you know the answer to that, you're made. Question: How do you select minimum cruising altitude; that is, at what altitude do you accept any lift?
Moffat: That depends very much on the day, the geographical locality, etc. In Europe, I have flown for an hour and never got up to 1000 feet and have been relatively happy. The thermals are fairly close together there, so you might say 700 feet was the place we started to get real worried about the whole thing. But in Marfa, or more particularly Reno, we have the really extreme case. If you are below 5000 feet you are in deep trouble -- really deep trouble. I mean above the ground. You really want to start thinking about where you're going to put it. You don't have to think very hard because there's hardly ever any place to put it,
Question: When flying a speed triangle and you have a choice of direction (I don't know when that would be), how do you plan which way to go around?
Answer: In contests, you never have a choice. They tell you which way to go.
Question: Suppose you were laying out a record.
Goodhart: For laying out a record, there is a very considerable advantage in making the last leg into wind -because you don't climb the last leg. It's all downhill. So the first leg wants to be substantially downwind.
Question: This is for Gene Moore. List your first three choices of systems for maximum performance per dollar. Say, in a standard class, in the stall to 90 mph speed range.
Moore: I think if you want to consider performance per dollar, you would have to consider making the device yourself. I have given a little talk on the $10 variometer and the total energy device which will do most of the things that the one described here will do. It is made out of two Skippy peanut butter jar lids and a spring and a diaphragm. It would give you the most performance per dollar. The next, I think you must consider whether or not you want to really solve the problems that we talked about. In fact, you've got to really have some sort of a system philosophy here. There are three methods of dealing with the problem. The first one, and most widely used, is just to ignore the problem. The next method is to compromise with it and, finally, the third is to solve it. We haven't even talked about solving it. We've only talked about compromising with it. If we study Fig. 4 in my paper we see that the only solution that we really have for the total energy problem is for starting at 4000 feet and increasing your speed to 200 mph while going down to 3600 feet. As long as you were flying on that path, you would have perfect total energy compensation with that system. So then anything else we do is really compromising and learning to live with our instruments. My second choice would be a Ball because it does have the elements in the device to make an altitude adjustment. My next choice would be a PZL compensator or some type like that. I'm familiar with that particular device, and I'd say a PZL diaphragm compensator will probably make a wonderful instrument in something like a K-6. It's been my experience that the PZL is slightly short on compensation, The K-6 has a little suction on the static, and they just work out very nicely together. so I'd say build one, the Ball and a PZL.
Question: Since variometers have received so much attention, what specific instruments do you use in your own sailplane? What compensator? What audio, if any, electric or pneumatic, or what, and what range?
Moffat: I use a Moore electric with a Moore audio and a PZL compensator, a PZL 5-meter with compensator, and a PZL 3D-meter for optimistic times uncompensated. That's three instruments.
Goodhart. I use a PZL with a homemade compensator, a Burton electric with a Burton audio. The reason for having two really is, one is compensated and the other isn't. The electric one, of course, gives me the audio. Schreder: I use a Ball, which has audio and compensation, and a Friebe which has no compensation. I also carry a Pioneer at the bottom of the seat for an emergency.
Smith: My main variometer indicator is a PZL with a PZL compensator and bottle. I've got also a BSW electric with audio with a PZL compensator and bottle. I use the BSW only rarely except for the audio signal. I would just as soon put the indicator out of sight and just rely on the audio. I also carry an early Memphis rate of climb with the restrictors removed as a standby system because it requires no bottles or connections. The Memphis goes to +/-2000 feet, which gives me something to take care of extreme conditions. Question: How difficult would the design or installation of vertical see through panels in the fuselage be for help in taking turn-point photos? Smith: Difficult, I think, and I'd like to comment on how to avoid the view panel. You should concentrate on getting a good fix as you come into the turnpoint. You should select a road or some system of intersections or fences or hills, or whatever, that you can look at and know that the spot that you need to take the photograph from is just beyond the spot. You can watch the spot. You can keep lined up a cross fix on the photograph taking point. I find that as you barrel on, you can take a few seconds to make that fix in your mind. Then, you can come up into a slow, tight turn, and you'll be exactly in position. I am, therefore, not certain that the vision panel is a necessity.
Schreder: I would agree with A.J. (Smith) and think that would be a better solution than trying to put a window in the bottom or the side of the ship Moffat: The window is hard to do, or we'd have all done it long ago. I agree with A.J. It's not valuable enough to spend the time it would take. Question: (For Moore and Smith) It would seem natural to assume that factory test programs should have established correct static port locations on the new fiberglass ships. Nevertheless, Wil Schuemann has drastically changed them on his Libelle. Is this because of changes in his modified fuselage, or is it an indication that all of us should not accept the factory locations as correct on some of the never ships. Please discuss briefly the sailplane static systems. Are there any quick and dirty checks to determine a good vs. a bad system? Nose vs. tail and other static port locations?
Smith: I haven't trusted factory's static locations and in the past I've gone back to nose port locations. Gene makes me realize that the reason that this probably works is that I've been using PZL equipment and I get a little suction with that location, which makes the PZL compensator more accurate. About the rest of it, I can't really comment that much. Moffat: I would never trust factory located ports. They are often laughably far off. The Diamant was a very good case. The Elfe had been flying for 2-1/2 years when A.J. and I flew it, and the location was absolutely absurd. It was about six inches under the wing. They could not understand why they weren't getting total energy.
Question: How did you determine that it was bad? Did you use trial and error, or did you actually make some measurements?
Moffat: Well, actually that one was so wildly out that by using the known instrument system that I had from another ship it was obvious the location was impossible and equally obvious that ports on the nose was probably a pretty good idea from past experience with the PZL.
Moore: Wil Schuemann and I found that the nose static on his Libelle had some error. We found this out in two ways. The first was airspeed indication error. That is probably the easiest check that you can run on a static system. Put a calibrated airspeed indicator in the ship and do a flight test and make up your mind whether or not this thing is telling you the truth. The second indication came when we tuned up his compensator on the bench. We found out that it didn't match the static situation for the ship, and he, therefore, undertook the operation of moving the static to the rear of the ship on the fuselage and that fixed the problem in that particular ship.
Question: It didn't have anything to do with the fuselage modification at all, did it?
Moore: No. None. That was a separate item, and I would be interested in hearing from Nick and Dick because they're actually in the business of designing sailplanes. Perhaps they can comment on just how much attention they give to this detail.
Goodhart: The first thing we always do is a positionary check, using a trailing static, which hangs out on a long piece of line 100 feet below the aircraft and you compare the static there with the static you are getting from the aircraft over a whole range of speeds, and this gives you a very good analysis of whether you've got a satisfactory static position or not. Question: (For Smith) Why do you have the weight reduction now when in the Proceedings and at the symposium last year, you and Dick said you would always want to fly the heaviest ship you could keep in the air?
Smith: I'm glad somebody finally caught that. I have been amazed to go back through the Proceedings and find out that we really shoot off our mouths pretty quickly and get too fast on the draw. A much smarter statement would be to say that there is an optimum weight for the sailplane for a particular day, and must guess about it. It can, however, be a pretty intelligent guess. I was trying to emphasize that I would like to carry weight up to that optimum and maybe just a hair beyond it. Maybe a lot of it beyond if it is disposable.
Schreder: I agree with A.J.
Question: (For Smith) After reducing weight to the bare minimum, would you then add ballast for a strong day?
Smith: It is rather interesting. Most of those man hours in my weight reduction program that I talked about were in the last four years. They would total up to about 800 man hours at, let's say, hobby costs of $10 or $20 an hour times 800 is like $8000 or $16,000. If you take out 48 pounds, that is a lot of money per pound. But really what you are trying to do is give yourself the option of having a light ship on the weak days and carrying a lot of ballast on strong days.
Question: Please comment on Paul Bikle's flight tests which show none of the modern ships tested do any better in L/D than the RJ-5's, 40 to 1Schreder: He will have an article in Soaring. I think this is one of the best projects I have ever seen because Paul, of course, is well qualified to do this sort of thing, and he's willing to spend the time.
Byars: Would one of you like to mention some figures?
Schreder: I can't give exact numbers because I'm quoting from memory from looking at them very hurried1y. As I recall, he got 36+ on the HP-14. The highest one he had was 38 on. a Kestrel. I think the Cirrus was down very close to the HP-14 and one of the very interesting points that he discovered is that the Kestrel, which has the highest L/D has the lowest aspect ratio (which is about 20 -to 1).
Question: (Byars) What, speeds were these?
Schreder: He tested them over the whole speed range but, of course, the max L/D was at the max L/D speed.
Smith: It takes a tremendous amount of effort to measure a sailplane, but you get very interesting information. We have all been aware that the general condition exists whereby performances are not quite as good as the published curve indicates. Ziacher has pointed this out on a number of ships over the past years. Raspet, in really getting down to measuring the Sisu, discovered that it only had a 37 to I glide ratio instead of the 41 to 1. Ships generally perform less than published but this is not great news; pretty interesting though. I'd like to see more information and more research on the development aspect of a sailplane rather than simple measurements but, of course, measurements are sort of a beginning point to any program.
Moffat: Two things must be remembered about measurements no matter how carefully made. First, I don't think max L/D is a very meaningful figure. It has -been used for many years, but how many hours have you ever flown at max L/D? Out of my 1200 or so, I doubt if it is 30. You hardly ever know it is the last thermal and consequently you usually can time flying over max L/D. The second point; tests must be made in ideal air conditions which are dead smooth. Gliders almost never get flown in ideal air conditions. The Sisu was a particularly spectacular example, and so, by the way, is the 2-32. In fact, it is true that all the ones of that family of wing sections look grand in smooth air and very poor in rough. I have seen this in many ships aside from the Sisu and the 2-32. I saw it in tests with the Phoebus, for example. Unless we find a -way to measure ships in standard turbulence, you shouldn't be too surprised to see the contest results of a Cirrus be a bit different from the contest results of an HP-14. Question: One of the standard class designers is changing to a top surface only dive brake design. The bottom half is eliminated to keep them out of the weeds. Will this really work in limiting terminal velocity?
Moffat: Yes, this is Klaus Holighaus in the standard Cirrus. He came upon this by accident last spring. I had a letter from him about it. He was having some vibration trouble with the dive brake housing and removed first the lower surface and then the upper surface to find out what was causing it. He was most surprised to discover when he got the upper surface dive brake on and the lower surface dive brake off, that he still had 80 percent of his effectiveness. In fact, he suggested to me that I take the lower dive brake off the Cirrus before the contest last year. I made some experiments with it, and it was perfectly satisfactory for glide control, but it is a non-returnable modification, and I was afraid that I would have trouble selling it if I did it, so I didn't.
Question: Dick, what, if anything, do you think of the modular wing construction being used by Jim Bede and its possible application to gliders?
Schreder: I don't think it would be very applicable to gliders because I am afraid you would have torsional problems and I'm sure it would not be the lightest design. It would add weight. I can't see any real application for sailplanes.
Question: Smith made the suggestion that one obtains templates of wing contours to check same on a new sailplane. Can significant changes be made without danger to the structure, excluding obvious defects which may be filled? It likely that basic contours will be off?
Smith: You can generally get from the manufacturer a print that gives the airfoil at various stations, and this can be reproduced on mylar, metal, or whatever. You can carve out the templates and put them down on the wing, and check the fit. Most of the discrepancies I have seen are right on the leading edge, perhaps within the first five percent. That is normally called the nose radius. These are non-structural changes.
Moffat: I think there is something that a lot of people are not at all aware of, and that is that fiberglass manufacturers like Schempp-Hirth and Glasflugel and others, are extremely pleased if they make the molds of the prototype stay within a millimeter on the wing section. A millimeter is quite large in some respects. It is virtually impossible to make molds from a prototype and get the same section. There are heat problems, weight problems, and many other problems. If you talk to designers privately, they will tell you that they just don't get what they thought they had. That may be a factor if you are checking with the templates.
Question: Do any of you anticipate future speed record triangle attempts? What special techniques are involved as opposed to competition?
Goodhart: The answer is yes. We will, as soon as we get Sigma going (if we get it going). We shall certainly try to set some records with it. As to techniques, I don't think there is anything special. Obviously, as we mentioned earlier, there is a major advantage in getting the triangle oriented right with regard to the wind so that your last leg is into the wind, particularly on the shorter triangles. It can make about 10 percent difference.
Moffat: I don't plan to do much more record flying unless it happens to be very convenient. The biggest necessity for record flying is a whole lot of time to spend in a likely spot. I was talking to Joe Lincoln last night. He plans to spend up to a month in the proper spot, hoping to hit the weather. They have been doing this (waiting) in Odessa for ten years now, and they had one really great day only it didn't look like a great day. Only Al Parker, whose wife wanted him back for church on Sunday, took off. That was when he made the world's distance record. I think the -basic difference in speed record flying is that it is feast or famine. You count very heavily on the next thermal being a boomer, and you are perfectly willing to go down to the ground to find it.
Question: Would you ask the panel to discuss techniques for really poor days, overcast days, etc.?
Goodhart: We have something I call pussyfooting, which is feeling your way dead slow, staying with what you've got, and always having some idea what you're going for. On a bad day you go straight to the ground if you haven't got a clear aim; or some reason; something you can see; something you know that will indicate a better chance of lift somewhere in the gray haze in front of you. I reduce nearly always to just loosely holding in zero and waiting for something to indicate the possibility of something better out front because there really isn't any use going on. I remember in the German Internationals I went down on the last day and lost the championship because we had to go through a warm front. Three or four chaps did go through this warm front but by golly it was difficult. I remember at least 25 of us, all circling in zero. In fact, some of them were circling in sink because they didn't climb that well. It was a great group and there wasn't anywhere to go and everybody was just holding on and wondering where to go. Being a sort of nervous character or something, I finally dream up some reason going on and went on and went to the ground. Not 20 minutes later, after I had landed, a patch of the faintest gray watery sun Just became visible and over the chaps went.
Moffat: I think one of the things to keep in mind for this kind of flying is you really want to think about how to get markers out there. I think your start on a day like that should be planned so that you will have other ships out ahead of you all the way around the course, if humanly possible. There just isn't a variometer like another sailplane.
Question: What are common symptoms for common field vario problems such as leaks in the pitot or the static. How do you recognize them? Any quick field solutions for gross over or under compensation?
Moore: One of the common troubles is a leak on the bottle side of the variometer and since this is located in the cockpit area, it would quite likely show up as an erroneous down reading. Another common trouble is no sensitivity or low sensitivity. If your bottle is leaking, you will lose sensitivity and it may or may not produce the down reading. The down reading that I described depends on whether or not the cockpit static and the static ports of the ship are at the same pressure. Probably the most satisfactory field fix on compensation would be to put a plug in the bottle, a small piece of closed cell foam or cork or something of that nature. Change the volume of the bottle.
Steve du Pont: I have two Friebe variometers, one over 30 years old and one brand new. They both had leaks around the glass. I had to make a spanner wrench and screw the glass up tight, and check the O-ring underneath. I put a new O-ring in one of them.
Question: Considering the possible clean-up, could differential spoilers for roll control without ailerons be justified?
Schreder: I would think it would be very bad because if you're flying, if you're thermaling (all the ships I've thermaled in) you find you use quite a bit of aileron, and I'm sure that the drag of a spoiler would be greater than the drag of ailerons. Maybe Nick has something different.
Goodhart: Oh yes, our feeling on the spoiler we're going to use, and it's strictly there to add the last bit of the rate of roll where you can accept that it produced quite a high drag. I would think that as a regular control service it would be quite unacceptable from the drag point of view. A.J. was asking whether we planned to have a detent at the end of the aileron movement at the beginning of the spoiler. No, we shall move progressively from one to the other, but I think you'll feel it in the hinge balance.
Moffat: You might be interested to know that Klaus Holighaus found when he first built the Nimbus that his roll rate was rather unacceptable. It was about six seconds as I recall. He added a spoiler of the kind Nick is talking about that engaged at I think it was the end of 15' aileron travel and reduced his roll rate by a fall second. Now he's down to 5 on 72 foot span.
Question: Are all the manufacturers thinking in terms of a system approach to sailplane trailer combinations? Home built trailers are a headache. Any comments on trailers or trailer-sailplane combinations?
Smith: I know of two manufacturers who are not solving the problem. No. I doesn't wish to get involved in trailer production and the shipping problems and this sort of thing so consequently practically no trailers at all. The other one says our transport wagons aren't the best, and they just don't work. They're not treated as a system for assembly particularly. Schreder: Anybody that has a real problem, we might be able to help them. We developed a trailer for the HP-15 which was all metal, very simple to build, stress-skin construction, and very light. It weighed 650 pounds, and this is a real joy to tow after going trailers made out of plywood that weighed more than twice that.
Question: What was the approximate cost, Dick?
Schreder: Approximate cost -- around $700. This is a kit of all materials.
Goodhart: Yes, it seems to me that it's a little unkind to say that home built trailers aren't going to go it because I've seen some jolly good home built trailers. It's the home design that you've got to look at. The building is all right, but I've seen some terrible designs. People haven't got to first base on the principles of what constitutes a good trailer, so I reckon that if somebody would produce a decent design and everybody can build a decent trailer from a kit of parts, or even from a design.
Moffat; We have an enormous advantage in America for the home builder, which is cheap plywood. I've built four trailers now; I think billings on all materials, including paint and stuff like that have come between about $245 and about $290. That includes commercial 1500 pound axle and all that. The weights seem to go around 1000 pounds or a bit less. They trail pretty well up to 107 which is as fast as the car will go.
Question: I am sure that each of the panel members has at one time or another served as a contest director at a soaring meet. I'd like to hear some comments on task selection, pre-contest selection of turnpoints, daily task selection, tow, start gate, finish gate, opening and closing times, whether this particular day should be a speed task or a distance task, etc. Well, I'd say just a few brief comments.
Moffat: As I recall (Nick you'll notice) there is an excellent article in Sailplane and Gliding on this by Ann Welch. I'd see that by all means. She knows a whole lot more about it than any of us do, except maybe Nick. Goodhart: Well now, I don't know a thing about it. I've only been on the receiving end, and I'm one of the chaps who's quite prepared to accept any task I'm offered, within reason.
Schreder: I think I'd just have to say I agree with those two.
Smith: The book, "The New Soaring Pilot" has an appendix which has a chart to help you with task selection based oil given meteorological conditions and I recommend anybody who's going to be faced with this problem get a copy.
Answer: I would like to add one comment and that is, by all means get a competent soaring pilot who knows the area on the task selecting committee so that some intelligent decisions can be made.
Question: (For Smith) Dick explained his poor Marfa performance. Your performance and standing were good, but you didn't win. Was it the wrong ship or bad luck or what?
Smith: The Sisu is a great sailplane. It's really tremendous, but it's not the best competition sailplane. It's good for records and good when the conditions are really good, but it's not a good competition machine. My mistake was in believing that I was really going to get EL new ship in time for the competition, and it didn't really materialize. I think I had the wrong ship. I don't think I made any real serious errors during the competition. I had one particularly bad day on a speed task where I got very low in a mountainous area and it just took a long time to get out. I felt pretty good at the end of the contest. I felt that I'd gotten about as much out of the Sisu as I could on the average. I think 7th isn't too bad.
Question; Briefly describe the pressure brought upon a pilot and his crew in a national or international competition. Are there any quick comments you could make about such things?
Moffat: You'll never know until you've been there.
Goodhart: I'm told that I become very, very unpleasant under that pressure.
Schreder: Yes, you're Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde during the contest.
Smith: Pressure is tremendous, and you've got choices to make when you begin to have problems either with yourself or with your crew.
Moffat: I think there's another side to this crew thing. Frankly, I think it's unwise of A.J. to use pickup crews. I think you should give a lot of time and thought to having a reliable crew, and I certainly feel that a lot of my success in five years has been due to having the same crew, Suzanne and Ralph, that I can count on absolutely. The other thing is, and one of the things that I think adds to the pressure, is that you had better use a little self control and not bite the crew's head off because if you bite the crew's head off they will slack off on you a bit. I think it's extremely important that the crew be just as competitive as the pilot. You don't want anybody on the team who doesn't care.
Smith: Very interesting. I think Wiley Mullan who is one of the most fantastic crewmen for me summed it all up. Wiley was an interesting guy. He was one of the ones that you didn't really know was around, but the job was always done and the ship was quite a bit better every day to fly so he was not only getting it assembled and getting it into position but he was doing little things to improve the ship every day without coaching and all this sort of thing, and I really didn't realize how good he was until two years later, but he summed it up one night. He said that the longest list of crew members in the world is the list of crew members who have crewed for Smith and the shortest list is the ones who have crewed for him twice. I've had a tremendous number of really good crewmen in Wiley Mullan and Ed Butts and some young chaps who have helped me during the summer -just fantastic people--and I'd be the first to admit that any problems I have with them on a personality basis are because I'm competitive, but in the pressure of the moment, I want to get the job done.
Schreder: I'd say that about the worst experience that a competition pilot can have is to be ready for takeoff and not be able to find his crew, during a national contest or in international competition -- and it does happen.
Question: Please discuss radios and how to obtain reliability and get good service. What kind do you use?
Schreder: I had a BEI and sent it back to the factory. They sent me a card saying that the factory burned down, my radio was gone, and it wasn't insured.
Smith: I've had very good luck with Baysides. The only failure I've ever had is in misuse of the equipment by trying to crank down too hard on the antenna attachment. We rotated the whole assembly and shorted out all the connections at the bottom, and transmitting without the antenna connected is tough on transistors. Otherwise, the set has been very dependable.
Moffat: I had an early Bayside bought in '63 which was a magnificent radio. The only mistake I ever made was selling it with the ship. I had, I think, two or three later Baysides, none of which ever worked despite many trips back to the factory -- before it burned down. I am currently using a Bertea, which I like very much, but I haven't used it for more than about a month so it's really too early to tell, but it really seems to be good.
Byars; A couple of months ago Graham Thomson told me he had sold about 40 or 50 Berteas and had had excellent results. Of course, he's a salesman. The Bertea has quite a bit higher current drain than the BEI, which may be a factor for some people.
Question: (For Moffat and Smith) How many days and how many dollars have you spent on the sport of gliding during the past ten years -- a rough ballpark estimate.
Moffat: What a question! It's tricky because you have sailplane expenses and operating expenses. Sailplane expenses have not been bad because of the market for the last ten years. You could usually even make a few dollars. I don't think I've spent many more dollars since I bought Dick's HP-8 for, I think it was $5000. I always manage to trade up a little. So the sailplanes weren't too bad. About the minimum other expense you get away with in the Nationals would be around $2000. If you're going to compete I don't see how you could possibly spend much under $2000 a year. I'd hate to add it up. It would shock me too much.
Smith: Averaged out over ten years, I would estimate about 120 hours of flying each year, about 80 of that in the Nationals, so not very much flying. That takes a minimum of three weeks of the summer and if you go to the Internationals, that takes five weeks or thereabouts. You can't put a dollar sign on that time. I think I've spent on the average of 200 hours during the winter in preparation. In other words, the ratio for me of preparation of flying is two to one, and, again, I can't put dollar signs on that time. If I did, I would give it all up and do something else. I would say that my expenses are about like George's. I'd say $2000 a year minimum and going to the Internationals adds maybe another $500 or so to that. Fortunately, in the past, in the Internationals, we've been relatively well reimbursed by the SSA fund. However, again, the dollars out of your pocket are probably still in the order of $1000 or so. The big thing, I think, is this time in preparation.
Moffat: I neglected to say anything about time. As I recall, I've got about 1200 flying hours in gliders in the last ten years, and I think that my log shows about 28,000 cross country miles. I don't count anything under 50 miles, but I quite agree with A.J., if you count your own time it is absolutely prohibitive, especially on a teacher's salary. I don't know about architects
Question: Give pros and cons regarding a wetting agent or detergent on smooth, sanded and compounded wing surfaces. What do you use on fiberglass? Goodhart: I haven't got any really useful comment to make. I don't believe it makes very much difference whether you have matt surface or polished surface or whether you put wetting agents on or not. What does matter is the waviness, and if you can get rid of the waviness then I reckon you're doing the most important job.
Schreder: We use 400-grit sandpaper, dry.
Smith: Generally, just washing down with plain water, and when necessary, cleaning off the accumulation of grime and whatever, with either rubbing compound or 400 paper.
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