Well, I liked to pose a really computer-generated, rendered image again. his is, another time, just the illustration to some calculations I presented at an idaflieg winter meeting (Aachen, 2012). Its wing span should 16.5 meters that's why it is called 165. The version with slotted flaps deployed corresponds to some estimations about the potential of high lift devices in thermal flight. The polars always look very promising concerning sink rates at low airspeeds and, even more, considering the possibility to go slower in circles and therefore with less bank angle and lower load factors. However, if one inserts these results into a thermal model (based on real flight data this time - see image "Going up in Circles"), one is left quite disappointed about it ... With flaps retracted, the plane had to do some dynamic manouvers in order to find out how much is altitude is lost when you oscillate above and below your average flight path - or even try to dive under the headwind with a speed close to v_NE. A promising strategy is probably pushing the stick only a bit at first and then to slowly pull it back keeping a constant ground speed when sinking within the atmospheric boundary layer. http://www.idaflieg.de AutoCAD 2002 Corel Photopaint 7 Notepad