A glider or sailplane is a type of glider aircraft used in the leisure activity and sport of gliding. This unpowered aircraft can use naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to gain altitude. Sailplanes are aerodynamically streamlined and so can fly a significant distance forward for a small decrease in altitude.
Rolladen-Schneider LS4
ASH25M—a self-launching two-seater glider
Hannover H 1 Vampyr, 1921
De-rigged glider in its trailer for storage and road transport
A glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. Most gliders do not have an engine, although motor-gliders have small engines for extending their flight when necessary by sustaining the altitude with some being powerful enough to take off by self-launch.
Single-seat high performance fiberglass Glaser-Dirks DG-808 glider over the Lac de Serre Ponçon in the French Alps
Aerobatic glider with tip smoke, pictured on July 2, 2005, in Lappeenranta, Finland
Otto Lilienthal in flight
Smallest glider in the world – BrO-18 "Boružė" (Ladybird), constructed in Lithuania in 1975