Feet Samuels

Sorry, I'll butt out. I thought the discussion was about out-landings, bubble canopies, high or low wing, UV exposure etc. Gliders to encompass a fairly wide range from basic to high performance, self launchers and touring motor gliders. You can buy a basic glider starting about $15,000 and a motor glider for about $50,000 - I don't regard this as being expensive compared to LSA types.

By efficiency, I mean just that. L/d or whatever way you measure this aerodynamic value. You’re talking about utility. By probably, I am allowing for the fact that some very efficient aircraft are shoulder wing like a JS-3 but most are mid-wing with carefully faired joins between wing and fuselage. By efficiency, I mean flying from Broken Hill to Tamworth on 2 litres of fuel. I don’t know how else to measure it. Probably there are other ways.

The acrylic used in most canopies filters out about 97% of UV. I don’t know of any glider pilot spending 6 or more hours recumbent in a glider cockpit who gets any more sunburned than when they strapped in hot yes, sunburned… not really. Probably the drag from the wing/fuselage join in a high wing aircraft is of more consequence to the reduced efficiency that a faired strut. There aren’t many efficient high wing aeroplanes that I can think of.