Influence of sailplane wing-bending flexibility on ‘1- Cosine’ gust loads

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During cross-country flight, a sailplane needs to extract energy from atmosphere. Usually, it gets the energy through circle flight in vertical thermal columns - thermals. While gliding from one thermal to another sailplane crosses different thermals, encountering gust loads and energy exchange with atmosphere. Further studies in this area should be on coupling between bending and torsion deformations as this coupling should reduce gust loads and maximize the energy gain.

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