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Soaring

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soaring: see flight flight, sustained, self-powered motion through the air, as accomplished by an animal, aircraft, or rocket. Animal Flight


Adaptation for flight is highly developed in birds and insects.
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; glider glider, type of aircraft resembling an airplane but having at most a small auxiliary propulsion plant and usually no means of propulsion at all. The typical modern glider has very slender wings and a streamlined body.
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soaring

 or gliding

Sport of flying a glider or sailplane. The craft is towed behind a powered airplane to an altitude of about 2,000 ft (600 m) and then released. The glider pilot makes use of rising currents of warm air, such as those above a sunlit field, to maintain or gain altitude. Instruments used include the altimeter, airspeed indicator, compass, and turn-and-bank indicator. National soaring contests, which include events for altitude, speed, distance, and accuracy in returning to a starting point, are held annually.


Soaring 

the flight of a glider in ascending air currents, with a gain, or at least no loss, in altitude. Soaring usually occurs when the rate of ascent of a rising current exceeds the glider’s normal rate of descent in a calm atmosphere. In practice, soaring is done in the ascending currents of airflows that develop when the wind flows over hills or mountains. Thermal currents, which arise as a result of local heating of the earth’s surface by the sun, can also be used for soaring, as can atmospheric waves that are formed over the crests of mountain ranges. Soaring requires a great degree of skill in piloting and the ability to determine from the topography the locations of ascending air currents. Gliders can occasionally soar for hundreds of kilometers.

REFERENCE

Goncharenko, V. V. Pariashchie polety na planere. Moscow, 1959.


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An Eagle was soaring through the air when suddenly it heard the whizz of an Arrow, and felt itself wounded to death.
Not otherwise than when a kite, tremendous bird, is beheld by the feathered generation soaring aloft, and hovering over their heads, the amorous dove, and every innocent little bird, spread wide the alarm, and fly trembling to their hiding-places.
They performed the dizziest feats of arithmetic, soaring quite out of MY feeble range, and perpetrated, in higher spirits than ever, geographical and historical jokes.
 
 
 
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