Polar Curves - Basics - BANDARRA

In aeronautics polar curves describe the relationship between horizontal speed and vertical speed of an aircraft.
With polar curves you can see your glide angle at various speed and even factor in things like headwind, tail wind, sink and lift or a combination of them.
They are extremely useful to understand how our paragliders work.
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[@Hix066]

Nicely timed Andre, I'm studying for my Pilot exam and polar curves were causing a bit of confusion. The moving graph demonstrated things perfectly. In a flash, it's all now clear as crystal in my head. Great work!

[@AndreBandarra1]

Cool, happy that it helps. If you're studying for your BHPA pilot exam in the UK this might help. I recorded it a couple years ago kzbin.info/www/bejne/sJ3Mf6JoepaIebc

[@Ripstop_pilot]

Ahhh, the polar curve. Love this info. Sadly very few companies give such information. It's good to have it as very basic measurement of performance. Nice little vid andre. Keep them coming.

[@AndreBandarra1]

Cheers dude! appreciate it

[@gerardkoob5474]

Great video once again, thank you ! I wasn't aware of the way the curve shifts according to the wind conditions.

[@ripmanridin7092]

More great info!...........Thanks!!

[@AndreBandarra1]

Thanks :D

[@bukopie]

thank you for sharing this information

[@chrisdervin5420]

Very good Andre best and simplest explanation I have seen :-)

[@AndreBandarra1]

Cheers Chris, nice to see that people enjoy the work that goes into it :)

[@LudovicReenaers]

Thank you Andre ! Just what I wanted. Notre yet sure about when to use which speed... But I guess it'll comes with experience.

[@AndreBandarra1]

Hi Ludovic, interesting question! I remember thinking about that exact same question on my first couple of years flying and found that for me the best speed to fly depends not only on your wing, polar, wind, sink etc but also depends on what you are trying to do. Are you trying to get as high as possible? Trying to come down? Trying to get exactly above that road or lake in front of you? etc. So even in a fairly simple flight of ridge soaring where you are trying to stay up by flying along the ridge there can be a lot of work you can do on the brakes and speedbar to optimize your flight. In lift, min sink, in "normal" air trim speed, in sink some speedbar, etc. This can be applied to bubbles of lift and sink and "normal" air of just a few meters, that you will fly through every second or two. Maybe this will make a video one day ahah

[@LudovicReenaers]

@@AndreBandarra1 yeah, well I'd assume that there is no universal answer to that question 😁 . Talking about speed bar, on my alpha 6, I would Call it a sink bar. Thanks anyway for your honnest ans complete answer.

[@Hemersonr]

Gostei muito da analise contra vento e sink e vento de cauda e rising... bacana

[@MortenCopenhagen]

Brilliant. Thanks.

[@Brazillianize]

oh, man - I promisse you that I'm no dumb-dumb but this vid was wayyy too short for the subject ... (although you made a very competent explanation of it) Suggestion: 'in-depth' basics (!?! - LOL). Success to U!

[@AndreBandarra1]

ahah yeah I know what you mean. I have to try really hard to not go off the rails with some of these videos onto a 10 minute tangent. Also often they are connected, so to explain polars you need to know about glide ratio etc, so sometimes I have to wait until a video has come out to release another. An indepth series would be really cool, would love to produce it but would probably need an aeronautical degree or someone much better than me to host it :)

[@FlyRusty]

Made understandable Thanks

[@nylonwing]

Hi Andre, so when you show the curve moving left and right depending on the head/tail wind, surely this means that the x-axis is representing "Ground Speed" not Air speed?? Because a paraglider can only travel at the range of speeds it is designed for.

[@AndreBandarra1]

Good point David, you’re probably right! You can also leave the axis as airspeed, don’t move the graph and just move the point from which you take measurements in head/tailwind, rather than always from the origin (0,0). I think the convention in aviation is to call the axis airspeed

[@randysaffer]

Great video but question: what data do I need to create a polar curve for my wing?

[@nathanbarraud4349]

That's cool And what about the paraglider simulator you are making ?

[@AndreBandarra1]

Still being worked on, but life gets in the way :)

[@rodrigogerundo]

How do I get a generic polar curve for a B+ paraglider ? Nivuk ikuma 3?

[@AndreBandarra1]

If you have a zero wind day, a gps and some height you can measure it

[@sunshinezoner7275]

Beautiful explanation. The best I've ever seen this explained anywhere. Keep up the amazing work!

[@AndreBandarra1]

Thanks, appreciate it