I got caught in a micro burst – just the once!
In the vortex the aircraft was going down very quickly despite the engine being at full chat. Outside the vortex the rate of climb was as good and still climbing with the engine at thrust idle. If I had been brave enough and could have stayed with the micro burst, I have no doubt at all I would have gianed considerable height in the rising air without any power at all.
I didn’t quite glide, but passing under a cloud in a Cessna TR182, I was unable to maintain altitude with engine at idle (gear warning horn blaring) and IAS at the maximum.
In the Auster (which is related to the Taylorcraft – mine is actually a “Taylorcraft Aeroplanes of England” machine, before the company was called Auster) the best glide speed is about 50 mph indicated. The airspeed indicator becomes increasingly inaccurate on the low side below this speed, in a similar way to the Cessna 100-series planes (but for the Auster there’s actually a graph in the pilot’s manual which shows indicated airspeed versus actual airspeed).
We’ve wave soared the Auster (didn’t actually turn the engine off, just pulled the power to idle) and got 1000fpm climb, but wave can be quite strong.
I did a photo shoot of my old Cessna 140 near Salt Lake City, I took advantage of the quite strong thermals there to boost the rather poor climb rate.
There’s quite a few stories of people soaring Cubs and the like for a considerable amount of time with a stopped engine in places where there’s strong themic activity.
Flying with an old 80hp Katana I sometime make the students fly circles under well developed CUs to keep temperatures below redline while still climbing at a good rate. i wouldn´t call it gliding, but it´s very helpful on hot summer days to get up to higher altitudes.
