A sailplane or glider is a type of glider aircraft used in the sport of gliding. Sailplanes are aerodynamically streamlined and are capable of soaring in rising air.
Sailplanes (or "sports gliders") benefit from producing the least drag for any given amount of lift, and this is best achieved with long, thin wings, a fully faired narrow cockpit and a slender fuselage. Aircraft with these features are able to climb efficiently in rising air produced by thermals or hills. Sailplanes can glide long distances at high speed with a minimum loss of height in between.
Gliders have rigid wings and either skids or undercarriage. In contrast hang gliders and paragliders use the pilot's feet for the start of the launch and for the landing. These latter types are described in separate articles, though their differences from sailplanes are covered below. Gliders are usually launched by winch or aerotow, though other methods: auto tow and bungee, are occasionally used.
Glider is an EP by My Bloody Valentine, released in April 1990 by Creation Records. The EP was also the group's first release on the Sire Records label in the USA. The lead track, "Soon", was later included on the Loveless album.
All songs written and composed by Kevin Shields except where noted.
Military gliders (an offshoot of common gliders) have been used by the military of various countries for carrying troops and heavy equipment (see Glider infantry) to a combat zone, mainly during the Second World War. These engineless aircraft were towed into the air and most of the way to their target by military transport planes, e.g., C-47 Skytrain or Dakota, or bombers relegated to secondary activities, e.g., Short Stirling. Military gliders do not soar. Once released from the tow craft near the front, they were to land on any convenient open terrain close to target, hopefully with as little damage to the cargo and crew as possible as most landing zones (LZ) were far from ideal. The one-way nature of the missions meant that they were treated as disposable leading to construction from common and inexpensive materials such as wood.
Troops landing by glider were referred to as air-landing as opposed to paratroops. Landing by parachute caused the troops to be spread over a large drop-zone, whereas gliders could land troops in greater concentrations precisely at the target landing area. Furthermore, the glider, once released at some distance from the actual target, was effectively silent and difficult for the enemy to identify. Larger gliders were developed to land heavy equipment like anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns, small vehicles, such as jeeps, and also light tanks (e.g., the Tetrarch tank). This heavier equipment made otherwise lightly armed paratroop forces a much more capable force. The Soviets also experimented with ways to deliver light tanks by air, including the Antonov A-40, a gliding tank with detachable wings.
In Euclidean geometry, a kite is a quadrilateral whose four sides can be grouped into two pairs of equal-length sides that are adjacent to each other. In contrast, a parallelogram also has two pairs of equal-length sides, but they are opposite to each other rather than adjacent. Kite quadrilaterals are named for the wind-blown, flying kites, which often have this shape and which are in turn named for a bird. Kites are also known as deltoids, but the word "deltoid" may also refer to a deltoid curve, an unrelated geometric object.
A kite, as defined above, may be either convex or concave, but the word "kite" is often restricted to the convex variety. A concave kite is sometimes called a "dart" or "arrowhead", and is a type of pseudotriangle.
If all four sides of a kite have the same length (that is, if the kite is equilateral), it must be a rhombus.
If a kite is equiangular, meaning that all four of its angles are equal, then it must also be equilateral and thus a square. A kite with three equal 108° angles and one 36° angle forms the convex hull of the lute of Pythagoras.
Kite is a young adult novel about red kites by Melvin Burgess. It contains 15 chapters and was first published in 1997.
When Taylor Mase steal a red kite egg, he is not expecting it to hatch out — but it does. Taylor feels an urge to protect the fragile baby bird, which faces many hazards, including Taylor's own father, a gamekeeper.
A kite is a type of aircraft.
Kite or kites may also refer to: