What is a Glider?

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Gliders are aircrafts without engines. Also known as sailplanes, gliders have long, narrow wings. A glider can soar up on rising air and glide down on sinking air. Once aloft, it loses height very gradually, kept up by rising air currents. Gliders also have a cockpit containing controls and other instruments including a variometer which keeps the pilot abreast of the rate at which air lifts or drops the aircraft. Gliders can be launched into air by either catapulting it from a hill top by an elastic chord or pulled into air by a line being wound on to a drum.

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