Is there any way you could use a trainer as a gliger if you threw it? Silly question but just wondering if the trainers are light enough to do it?

MAYBE if you had the CG just right and threw it off the side of a mountain !!! Any thing is possible but I'd have to say NO unless you really knew what you were doing and then I'd still think NO. ENJOY !!! RED

Im not talking about climbing just gliding for a while.

Sure a trainer can be a glider. 2 problems though. The typical trainer has a heavier wing loading than the typical glider. This means it must go faster to fly, so hand launching will be tougher. Also the typical trainer has a bunch more drag than the typical glider, so it doesn’t glide nearly as efficiently. You could make a semi decent slope soaring glider from a trainer wing by building a light weight glider style fuselage and tail for it. But the wing will still not be very good for thermal flying in lighter lift. The wing can be improved a little by extending the span. But if you are going to take the time to do all this, you might as well just get a glider kit and build that. There are some ARF gliders available.

Multiflyer

If I were to take my trainer and throw it running as fast as I could and throw it as hard as I could how far would it glide. Id be running on a flat surface. I was just wondering to the testemony of the gliding abilities.

Most .40 size trainers fly faster than you think. If you had a 10-15 mph headwind, you might have a chance. Even then, it would only glide about the length of a RC field runway.
I once took the prop and landing gear off of a Cox .049 Easy Bee and used it as a slope soarer, it worked pretty good, but that's not a normal trainer.

It depends--how fast can you run?

Seriously, though, it'd be a decent glider if you hauled it up with another airplane. You need to round the nose off, take everything out of it, and still lighten it up some.

Im pretty fast lol. So if I had a slight wind and was running as fast as I can into it and threw itas hard as I could would I be able to have enough flight time to turn it around and land it!

Probably not. I've been reading this thread and from what I can see is you want to just throw the plane and have it work as a glider. It may "glide" for a bit before it reaches the ground. But even with perfect conditions you are not going to be able to turn around and land with it. You have to realize that gliders have huge wingspans with very low weight. A trainer just isn't going to be a substitute for a glider. It's too heavy and has too high of a wing loading to make a good glider.

Ken

If you took a .40 size trainer, ran as fast as say, an olympic sprinter, gave it the throw of a javelin thrower, I'd say it might go 100 feet in a straight line. As soon as you tried to turn it, it would fall out of the sky like a lead balloon.

No! It would be like doing a deadstick go-around with the plane only about head high. All you would be able to do is glide forward to a landing.

Trainers are excellent gliders but they are crummy sailplanes. Kill the engine while up in the air and, presto!, instant glider! They are almost easier to land deadstick than under power. The space shuttle is a glider but it aint no sailplane.
BTW, weight, e.g. ballast, is not nesessarily a bad thing in a glider. It improves the plane's ability to penetrate headwinds without having a high sink rate. Full scale sailplanes often have tanks for water ballast which can be dumped before landing.

Have to go back a lot of years for this. A test glide for the free flight types was standard during the 30's. A gentle toss to see if the CG was correct. Dead engine of course. If the model had a straight glide and went about 30 feet in a gentle descent it should be O.K. to fly with power. This was standard procedure for the "first" flight of the day every day. To call them a glider was a lot different than making a test glide. Those airplanes had a lot lower wing loading as well. Modern trainers will not be able to do the same thing because of the wing loading and design. All control surfaces would have to be dead neutral and a test glide of 20 feet would be exceptional. If you want a glider get something specifically designed for that purpose. If you want busted props, bent landing gear and a scraped up airplane, test glide your trainer and make sure you have a strong throwing arm.