The Gentle Lady
This is the skeleton of the Goldberg Gentle Lady. I bought this model kit at a yard sale for $5 and carried it around for 20-some years. During Christmastime 2007, it came to life.
Here we are today with the Gentle Lady, Anna, Adam and Jacob. The glider has a wingspan of over 6 feet and weighs only 24 ounces.
The Gentle Lady does not have an engine. It only glides. There are three typical ways I like to fly it: toss it by hand from the ground, launch it with a Hi-Start, or slope soar.
Here is an example of a slope from which to fly near our home. It's at a sand-pit:
A the wind blows up and over the slope, the upward direction of the wind on the upwind slide of the hill ascends faster than the glider descends. Pretty cool! Watch this example, below:
Another method to launch the glider is the Hi-Start:
It consists of 100 feet of rubber tubing attached to 350 feet of nylon string. It's attached to a stake in the ground at one end and to the Gentle Lady on the other. It's like a giant sling shot. Below, see Adam reeling out the Hi-Start downwind across the field.
Here's the Hi-Start in action:
And another flight:
So, did you wonder what that thing was strapped to the top of the nose in the first Hi-Start video? Well, we get bored easily and thought it fun to attach a GPS for telemetry.
This is what we learned: Top speed during launch was 27.5 mph. The highest altitude reached on three GPS-equipped flights was 222 feet above ground level (AGL).
Uploaded to Google Earth, here is the 3D trace of the three flights. Trace each of the flights starting with the staight slanted upward High-Start launches and the circles down:
Check out the Google Earth telemetry of our glider flights yourself. Download it here!
Did I mention we get bored easily?
So, now, let's rubber-band our Casio digital cameral to the bottom of the wing. Hold on!!
Pretty neat!
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Steve,
Very neat and great perspective of flight. Great job on the blog and keep them coming.
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Steve
your are pretty amazing, i don't know how you get it all done. loved your you tube. it's know wonder i don't get anything done when i get on your blog.
see you soon j.j.
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wow! that was pretty much the coolest way to beat boredom that I have ever seen! I especially liked seeing you and your kids standing/running from the plane-cam!
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