Wills Wing Sport 2 155, Owner'S Service Manual

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in doubt, because with the drogue chute you have limited ability to extend (flatten) your glide, but very
good ability to reduce (steepen) it. For example, in the normal glider configuration, if you were ap-
proaching at best L/D speed into a head wind, and were coming up short, you would speed up. With
the drogue, speeding up will primarily degrade your glide and will not get you significantly more
distance. When using the drogue, set up higher, and approach with more speed. Then, if you are too
high, you can still speed up more and cut your glide, while if you are too low, you can slow down and
extend your glide. When you round out on short final and begin slowing down, the drogue will shorten
the time period between round out and flare. This reduces the opportunity that turbulence would
otherwise have to lift a wing or yaw the nose away from your flight direction. As a result, timing the
flare becomes easier, and the chances of making a wings level flare with the glider pointed in the
direction of flight are increased. Overall, the effect is very much that of making the glider take on the
landing characteristics of a lower performance, easier to fly glider.
The first time you use a drogue chute you should fly over the LZ at more than 1000’ AGL, and deploy
it long before you start the landing approach. This will allow you to take the time to learn how the
glider flies with the drogue. A properly designed and mounted drogue chute should not have any major
effect on the glider’s flight characteristics, other than to reduce the glide ratio, but you should get a
feel for these effects at altitude.