This is just an image I painted to illustrate academic calculations concerning a glider with a glide ratio of 100, which reveals to be a truly challenging task. The result was that you need an aspect ratio of at least 100 too, with a take-off-weight of 2700kg (E-class) that keeps Reynolds numbers high enough. This particular example would have a wing span of 60m and an AR of 105, yielding to a wing loading of 79kg/sqm. With an XFoil-calculated Wortmann FX-73-airfoil it should reach a maximum L/D of 102 at 114kph and a minimum sink rate of w=0.3m/s at 109kph. But this is just the wing. The parasite drag of fuselage, tail and other details like gaps at ailerons, dive brakes or even flaps had been neglected. Toghether with the generally optimistic XFoil-polar, this should compensate for more advanced airfoils that might be optimized for this special purpose. In the speed polar, I added some flap deflections, just to make it more colourful. You see the effekt of negative flap deflection at high speeds, the airfoil later drops out of of the laminar bucket at its lower end. Funnily, the calculation yields to a best L/D of 103 at 122kph for -5deg. On the other end, the effect of positive flap settings on minimum sink is fairly neglectable. The drag polar shows the fractions of parasite and induced drag. (For comparison, with 850kg which is MTOW for a (powered) glider you get an AR of 33.2 and some more induced drag.) Well, I keep being fascinated by the idea. Even though I really doubt that there is any sense in setting it into practice just for showing that one is able to do it. Times for bank-to-bank manoeuvers could probably be clocked using an hourglass. Flying in thermals should not be very plaesent when the wing span is similar to turning radius; not to mention ground handling of a 2.7-ton-aircraft that has 60m of wing span. The funny thing was that after a couple of hours of drawing I got used to the look of such a high aspect ration wing, I didn't consider it anything special anymore. In this case, possibilities in AutoCAD were really a bit limited (or my version or at least my knowledge about it). Already the non rotational symmetric cockpit setion caused me some troubles and especially the canopy and other openings. As th image is GIF-format with black background, you may cut out any part you like and combine it with others, maybe closed canopy with landing gear out or gear in and canopy off ... Or, place it in front of some impressive landscape. Thanks for viewing and Merry Christmas. Airfoil polars calculated with XFoil 6.96 induced drag added and diagrams drawn with Grapher 2.03 Plane drawn and rendered in AutoCAD 2002 grabbed to Clipboard saved after a little postwork with Corel Photopaint 7 text typed in WordPad (MS-Office 2000)