Bruno Vassel's video: How Much Altitude Will Looping Glider Lose

How much altitude will a high performance glider (also called sailplane) lose if you loop it? I thought it would be fun to see and went out and filmed a few loops. After doing about 10 loops over the course of the day I found that it REALLY depends on your technique. I did a few loops where I lost only somewhere around 50 feet - no joke! And other loops where I lost more than 250 feet. The majority of them though were only right around 100 feet. Not bad energy loss at all for climbing 500+ feet in just a few seconds curling over on your back and then pulling 3.5 g's coming out of the other side upside down just a few seconds away from ripping your wings off from over speeding if you mess up. Quite fun! This glider is an ASW27B and the video was shot just east of Nephi, Utah. The big mountain you see upside down is Mount Nebo. Thanks for watching! Bruno - B4