COMMON
VENT
Schempp-Hirth Ventus
The Ventus
“No engine. No problem. Hundreds of miles.”
Schempp-Hirth · private
NO PHOTO
Length
21 ft 7 in
Wingspan
49-59 ft (15m/18m tips)
Max speed
146 kts
Engines
None — sailplane (some carry a retractable sustainer motor)
Crew
1
Max passengers
0
Typical config
single-seat racing sailplane
Built
Unknown
The Ventus is a thoroughbred racing sailplane from Germany's Schempp-Hirth, flown in world championships and weekend cross-countries alike. Riding invisible columns of rising air, a good pilot can take one hundreds of miles and return home without ever burning a drop of fuel.
Fun fact
Modern Ventus gliders achieve glide ratios near 50:1 — a mile of forward travel for every 100 feet of height lost.
How to spot one
Impossibly long, slender white wings and a tiny cockpit pod. Circling silently under a puffy cumulus cloud is the classic sighting.
Crews call it
The Ventus
Sounds like
Almost nothing — a faint wind hiss overhead, which is exactly the point
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Ventus from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook. Coming to iOS and Android.
Get Bogey