RC model glider sets new mach 0.7 world speed record

That must be some glider, I thought it would have broken up at that speed. Was that not one of the problems back in the fifties when jets of that era were put into steep dives to reach Mach 1?

Richard

OK, it's going like a bat out of hell, but it's not clear what the strategy would be, or how the speed was proved. Are they claiming that speed in level flight? I'd have thought that to get to that sort of speed they would want to go very high, and then attempt a near-vertical dive, like a peregrine. It didn't look to me to have an ideal aerodynamic shape either.

radar gun

Apparently it gains speed by looping between two relatively moving air masses.

its is reckoned to be pulling 100G. needs to be stiff to avoid flutter but 500mph is well clear of compressibility on a decent airframe

radar gun

yes.

Research how dynamic soaring actually works..

I can assure you that for its purpose, it does.,

Did you leave Turnips sig there to prove how much he lives in the past?

Thanks for the explanation, I can now see why it's Albatross shaped. It was just that I was thinking of the Peregrine model for speed.

How on earth does the pilot manage to track and exploit that boundary so effectively? I guess a data downlink would help. Air-speed, temperature, GPS coordinates?

The boundary is pretty fixed. I think you just know 'where it is' after a few passes.