un1or Martin Simons & John Watkins

his is not so much the story of the Sperber Junior sailplane as of the Twoman for whom it was built and who was the only person to fly it. Hanna Reltsch was one of the most courageous and skilful pilots who ever lived but it is impossible to write about her or her aircraft without acknowledging the rest of her character. Indeed her flying exploits and nearly unbelievable bravery seem to have been driven by her deep internnl. passions. She will be remembered not only fo r her flying but for the role she played in Nazi Germany. She inspired admiration though rarely love among those who knew her. She herself seems always to have sought a hero to worship and became ever more deeply enmeshed in the politics of the time. I met her once in 1978 a few months Hirschberg. Under Wolf Hirth's tuition she Top - The Sperbe1· junio·r with its before her death. She was tiny, much tinier Wasscrkuppc ding :>ailplane pilot and hastily allocated 1936 than Thad imagined although I had known became an outstan contpetition 11Un·•bcr, 6:l . Even at the age wns chosen to go to Brazil with the selected already that she was small. ve Hanna Gennan demonstration team in 1934. She Above - Tile diminuti of 66 she was quite unusually intense in Reitsch in tlte tiny cockpit that was speech and gesture. When she spoke her test flew a seaplane version of the tnilored for Iter. whole person was involved in every word, Rhonadler sailplane and put on brilliant she quivered with perpetual excitement displays of glider aerobatics with Emst international soaring competitions in 1937 and enormous internal tension, expressing Udet and Peter Riedel at the 1936 Winter where she alone flew the very special and an almost ferocious energy. J began to Olympics above the frozen lake at expensive prototype Reiher, a big, heavy understand how she had come to be what Garmisch. She performed again over the and difficult sailplane to handle. she was. Berlin Olympic Stadium and later at the She was a Where does the Sperber Junior fit into Nineteen years old in 1931 she learned to Cleveland Air Races in the USA. of the German team for the this? fly gliders near her home town of member

QFI 14 JULY 1995 . 1.. 1 DOCUMENTATION -· Hanna became a test pilot for the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fiir Segelflug (DFS, German research institute for sailflying) where Hans Jacobs led the design team. Jacobs had worked on gliders and sailplanes since the late nineteen twenties under Alexandc.r Lippisch (who later designed the Me J 63). He assisted Lippisch with the famous Fafnir and several earlier designs such as Kronfeld's Wien and the Professor type of 1928. jacobs independently designed the very successful Rhonadler and l~honb ussard sailplanes which were in full production at Schleicher's faCtory by 1934. These were the first high performance sailplanes ever to go into large scale factory production. Previously sailplanes had been designed individually and it was rare for more than one or two to be bu Llt to a particu li!r pattem. In 1935 Jacobs' latest product was the Rh tSnsperber, a 15.3 metre span sailplane derived from the 14.3 m Bussard but with a gull wing mounted on the fuselage at shoulder height instead of on a pylon. The win g profiles were the same, Gottingen 535 tapering to a thin symmetrical tip and the flanges and plywood webs, were joined on J\ repl-ica. of tile Sperber Jw•ior co-ntrol the centre li ne of the aircraft with two large pam?l, probaEJly fro·m. the Wasserkuppe tail unit was only slightly altered. (The Museunz. only airworthy Rhonsperber existing now horizontal steel pins, the fuselage being attac!1ed by four smaller pins. has in fact a Bussard tailplane.) awkwardly at the point where this bend The Rhonsperber's extra metre of span The Rhonsperber was a very successful occurred. To move them more inboard and higher wing loading, 18.8 kg /sg m club sailplctne bu t Jacobs was aware of would have ca used difficulties when thev (3.8lbs/sq ft) as against 16_8 kg/sq m many deficiencies imposed by the were open. The turbulent airflow behinti' (3.44lb/sq ft), ensured it would perform requirement that it should fit such a wide them would strike the tailplane and. Glu.se better than the Bussard in cross country range of pilots. When Hanna Reitsch came unpleasant effects on control. To shift them flyi ng. It was, ra ther unusual for its time, it to work for the DFS Jacobs recognised that further out might have similar ill results had a fully enclosed cockpit with a an ordinary cockpit was far too big for for the ailerons. Tite spoil ers had to be teardrop shaped canopy. One reason for such a little ),rirl. She had to carry her own situated at the point where the wing this was the realisation that the pilot cushions about with her and lumps of curved but when closed must lie Hush with circling in a thermal with other sailplanes, ballast were often n ecess<~ry too to bring the surface. The plates had to be bent to must keep a good look out to avoid the centre of gravity to the right place. conform. This prevented them being collisions. In the 13ussard this was almost Yet even now there ·were still a few large simply hinged al ong their front edges like impossible because the wing leading edge men who could barely get into the cockpit the usu <~l sort of letter box paddle so Jacobs was. directly above the pilot's hcad and of any existing sailplane. jacobs therefore devised a new syr;tem which brought the there was no view into the turn at all when set about the design of two new types, the blades out on rotating arms dear of the the sailplane was correctly banked. The Sperber Senior for Ludwig Hofmann, a big wing and, as was shown in practice, more new type of canopy gave an excellent all man, and the Sperber Junior for Hanna for effective in operation than the simpler round field of view. whom he seemed to develop a fatherly hinged flaps. The fuselage of the Rhiinspcrber, like the affection. The two new sailplanes owed Jacobs took Hanna's measurements, Bussard, was necessarilv rather fat. Pilots their general layout, but not much more, to perhaps by the trick of sitting her against a sat upright, usually with a parachute too the Rhonsperbe.r_ wall and drawing a chalk line around her. and since the aircraft was intended for The Sperber junior wing retained the This established the fuselage cross section general club operations there must be Giittingen 535 wing profile with the usual -which was the smallest possible oval that enough room for large men. Cockpits were symmetrical tip section but the span was would contain her small frame. Rnther deep and wide. Smaller people were increased to 15.6 metres. This alone than the teardrop canopy Jacobs reverted accommodated with cushions and ensured a small advantage in performance to thc type of cockpit cover that had been trimming ballast if necessary. The for the new sailpla nc. The Rht'insperber used originally on the old Fafnir. From the aerodynamic penalty of the large cross wing had a constant chord centre section nose back to the wing root a carefully sectional area had. to be accepted- but for Hanna's aircraft Jacobs anticipated shaped hollm-v fairing just wide enough for The structure of the RhtSnsperber was later trends by tapering the wing in two the pilot's head was constructed with relat ively simple. There were no elaborate stages, more closely approximating the elliptical portholes to provide a view. The wing root fairings or costly materials. elliptical outline. ports in this case were partly enclosed by Locally available Baltic pine was used for The gull wing type of dihedral required transparent plastic but two large circular all the spars, longerons and rib booms with a bend. in the main spar- Jacobs felt. that the openings remained. To look sideways was Scandinavian birch plywood skins for the usual rather i! bmpt change at this point easy, to see directly ahead the pilot had to fuselage and the leading edge, torsion was detrimental to the airflow and le<1n out to one side slightly. resisting, D tubes of the flying surfaces. designed a more gradual curve, the timber Great care was taken to fair the wing The rear parts of the wings, tail surfaces being laminated in thin strips to form the root smoothly and the lines were adjusted and ailef·ons were fabric covered, as usual. bend. as far as possible to accommodate the The wing was in two pieces. The main The spoilers located behind the spar on fuselage to the generally curved flow spars, laminated with upper and lower the upper side of the wing came rather around the wing. Much more care than _. DOCUMENTATION 6512 i ~~~==~==~--r-~~-:~--~~u-._, -~~~ ~!

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Mid profile Gottingen 535

0 Hanna Reitsch's Sperber Junior May 1937 Alpine crossing Tip profile Gottingen 409

Drawn by Martin Simons 1995 ©

QFl '14JULV.-1995 13 DOCUMENTATION

usual was also taken with the tail unit and all the hinge line gaps were small to prevent air leakages. When completed the Sperber Junior was pa inted in a spectacular blue n.nd cream sunburst colour scheme on the upper surfaces only and, as was the n orm <:~ \ practice, polished to a very glossy shi ne. Th~ structure weight was 170 kg (373 lbs) wl~ch was more than the ordinary Rhonsperber but the additional wing span and arc? brought t~e wing loading, with Hanna m the cockpit, to a lower figure. Nobody else except a child could even get into the cockpit. The performance was accurately measu.red in flight. The best glide ratio was found to be 1:24.3, nearly three points be ~t e r than the Rllonsperber and (1nly 1.7 pomts poorer than the great 19 meh·e ~nfnir 2. For purposes of comparison the ftgu.res were standardised for a cockpit load of 105 kg, which HanM never approached. Oust what she weighed is not known.) Hannc1 was delighted with the little sailplane. It was the most beautiful c1i.rcraft of its ki nd, so exactly made to her measure that even she found it a tight fit. She had the feeling that the wings grew directly ou.t of her shoulders. It was readv in time for the August 1936 Rhon competition:; as was T-Tofmann's Sperber Settior, which had a much fatter fuselage, larger span, different wing profiles and a slightly inferior performance. (Best glidel:22.7) On arrival at the Wasserkupp~ Hanna was justifiably infu.riated to discover that a new rule had just been slipped into the regulations, apparently specifically to exclude her. Women were suddenly not permitted to enter. She seems not have realised that this was a cltunsy attempt by the orgamsers to conform to the official T<>J' - Coclcpit a.,td n ose. Note the d·r·op Nazi policy for women which all ocated conference on glldir1g was held at offgJ'O Wll./. handling trolley them to Kinder, Kuche and Kirche Salzburg, Austria, in May 1937 and an competition was arranged, all A bove- Not e the curved a irl,ralce and (Children, Kitchen and Church) and kept international Sr11r 13U>·st colo u.r scheme. them out of what the Party regarded as part of a campaign for soaring to be masculine activities. Whoever the new rule included in the 1940 Olympic Games. advancing from the south forced her to came from she would not accept it. She Pilots were encouraged to fly into the Alps look for a landing place. The only space used every contact she had including Ernst and issued with emergency rations, Very av,tilable was an Italian army parade Udet who now was a high officer in the pistols, flares and whistles i.n case they ground which she managed to get into e remote Luf~~:affe and carried her protest through should be forced down in som safely, barely scraping over surrounding unttl it reached Herman Goering. She rocky and ice bound region. Hanna took trees. forced a change and was allowed to the Sperber Junior and on 3oth May she After th is she developed an almost compete on equal terms with the sixty men was one of five who soared right across the up ~rst i tious for her sailplane and who entered. The Sperber Junior was mountains to land in northern Italy. It was s feeling creeping out at night hurriedly allocated the contest number 6l an awe inspiring and often very got m to the habit of to visit it in the hangar at Darmstadt and which was painted at once on the rudder. frightening experience for she was ntly caught in strong downdraughts, run her hands over its smooth surfaces. After the ten contest days Hanna placed freque forced into narrow va lleys with peaks Sl~e did not have many opportunities to Ay fifth although in terms of total distance tow~ring above and little hope of a safe 1t ill the following years. flown during the meeting she came first m gorges below. To r~ain Serious military business interfered with with 821.5 km to Peter Riedel's 793.4. landing the she flew dose to sunlit rock"'walls, the internationals. Points were scored not only for distance height Hanna's soaring after t one time being saved and shown the She became the only woman Flight but for height gains and duration. a ay by h¥0 jackdaws circling against a Captain, c1n honour conferred on her (Hofmaml had to withdraw after a few w cliff. personally by the Fiihrer in 1937. Her days for family reasons. His aircraft, the admiration suffered something of a blow rber Senior, was later soared over New At last she found powerful lift and Spe face to face. He York City and won the U.S. National reached 13,000 ft in cloud, but wc1s almost when she met the hero t, a rather scruffy Champi'onships with Riedel as pilot.) frozen. W11en she emerged she had flown seem.cd, she had to admi nd her only map and continued and coarse fellow. She nevertheless Ilanna's greatest adventure with the beyo through the Dolomites until cloud and rain maintained her faith in his leadershi p until Sperber Junior came the following year. A the end, never believing that he was -DOCUMENTATION responsible for the horrors which she was indecision and confusion she was released fuselage with 1/8" balsa, keeping an eye forced more and more frequently to see in July 1946. open for bowing and twisting. Use hard around her. balsa towards the nose and lighter at the At last she was forced to confront the I tail. Build on the fin and under skid, using She had helped develop dive brakes for realities. Life in Germany became light filler to close any gaps. · gliders and in 1937 went to the Luftwaffe's extremely difficult fo.r her but she base at Rechlin to test them for use on dive struggled on and ·wrote her autobiography, Add the hardwood nose block, and glass bombers. She flew a helicopter Fliegen mein Leben (in translation cloth the inner nose area. - successfully, even performing inside the published as The Sky my Kingdom, Bodley Wings. vast Deutschlandhalle sports palace in Head, London 1955). When gliding -vvas Laminate the trailing edges ,md cut out Berlin before a huge crowd in 1938. again permitted in Germany she joined in all the ribs, being selective with the grade During the early years of the Second enthusiastically and became a member of of wood, hard at the .root and lighter World \Nar she tested the enormou:; the German international team for1952. towards the tips. Build the spars, using the Messerschmitt Gigant troop carrying The .rest of her career, included a four year finest and straightest grade of spruce. You glider and a highly dangerous petrol spell in Ghana under the dictator, Kwame may prefer to build a jig nnd build the tanker glider. She landed gliders on beds Nkrumah for whom, perhaps typically, she wing that way, taking into account the of ropes to establish if aircr,tft could be developed a profound admiration. She ran crank. Otherwise cut the ribs in two at the spar and with the spar pinned down, glue landed on small warships this way. Jacobs the Ghana National Gliding School from 1962 till66. When Nknnnah was deposed all the leading edge .ribs in place, followed designed a gadget intended to be fitted on by the trailing ribs, chocking them up to the wings of a bomber to cut balloon give the right amount of washout. The rest barrage ca bles. Hanna tested it by flying a of the wing, ailerons, tips etc., are self Dornier bomber into the steel cable and explanatory, just needing care to avoid saved herself from death in the .resulting building in any warps. Perhaps, instead of · crash only by coolness and extraordinary the method of wing retention shown, skill. hooks and bands would be preferred, Being small enough to fit inside one she purely a matter of choice. flew the V 1 flying bomb and helped sort Tailplane and Elevators. out its aerodynamic problems. These may be built upright from tl1e When testing the Messerchmitt 163 spar, but be sure that no warps creep in. rocket fighter she was almost killed and Select light wood for the spars, while recovering in hospital ·was delighted remembering that every ounce saved here to receive gifts and letters from Heinrich saves pounds in the nose! Himmler the SS chief who was at the time F.iJ.1.ishing. busily organising the extermination of Light glass cloth is recommended for the millions of people in the concenlTation fuselage, applied with a suitable finishing camps. When she came to hear from Peter resin, SP '113 or similar, to give a more Riedel, her old friend, about the mass durable 'ding' resistant finish. murders she allowed herself to be reassured by Himmler who she admired The wings should be covered with white Solartex, all surfaces having been sponged and thought of as a kind and generous with Balsa loc, likewise the tail surfaces, friend. It was all, she ,.vns made to but I am sure that we have all got our own understand, enemy propaganda. She twice favourite method. earned the Iron Cross. The whole model is then sprayed off She volunteered to join and lead the white and decorated with sunburst stripes proposed suicide squadron of pilots w ho The cleanly streamlitt.ed nose of the to simulate the .full size. would, li ke the Japanese kamikazes, Spt!rber· Twtior. Flying. deliberately crash their aircraft onto chosen ta rgets. In the last days of the war she flew she was deported ignominiously from the After Rx gear positions have all been into Berlin under heavy fire, taking control country. The rest, including her world established, including the aerotow servo, of the aircraft and landing the injured record soaring flights and at last her death firmly bond in sufficient lead to bring the G General V on Greim on the road close to the from a heart ailment in August 1979, is C of slightly behind the stated position. Brandenbuirg Gate for his final interview another story. The final position is achieved with lead or with Hitler. V on Greim was then made plasticine which can be more easily What became of the beautiful Sperber removed or added. to as necessarY: head of an air force ·which no longer Junior is not certainly known but it was existed. Hanna considered staying with probably destroyed along with most other R9commended Control Throws. Hitler to die with him and his last German snilplanes when the allied armies Ailerons - 3/4" up 3 /8" down. supporters in their underground refuge captured Darmstad t. Troops were ordered Rudder 3" each way. but was ordered instead to fly V on Greim to destroy all enemy aircraft of whatever Elevator 1/2" up and down. out again. She did so. type and they did so with enthusiasm. First flights are recommended from your Hanna and the general surrendered to Notes for the John Watkins Plan favourite slope site in the best conditit)ns. the American military authorities on 9th Fuselage. A good firm, slightly nose down, launch May 1945. V on Greim committed suicide Fret out al l the formers and steam the will ensure a smooth getaway. later i1t .the same month and most of 1/ 4" square top and bottom crutch to Gain height and check out the stall. Any 1-Ianna's close relatives in Hirsd1berg had shape, glueing the 1/4" ply keel firmly to already done the same rather than remain vicious surprisi11g wing dropping indicates the lower crutch. Clue all the formers in that the C of C should be moved forward a in their homes under Russian rule. place, lifting from tlte plpn and add all the little. remaining formers and 1/4" square side ·She herself was held for interrogation The first of this design was actually built which took place in October 1945, the chief stringers. Add the wing joiners tubes to F7 in Amcricn by a coll eague who reported concern of her questioners being whether and F8 and the incidence tube to F9, that the first tlight was from .the tow-line. Hitler had escaped from Berlin in her making absolutely sure they are firmly Apnrt from being a little tail-heavy, he said aircraft or whether he had died. She. was bonded in. it had no other vices and flew as though able to convince them that she had not The 1/8" ply root ribs are added to bond "on rails". Need I say more? Except, rescued him. After a good deal of the centre section together, then plank the always fly safely.

QFI -L4 JULY 1.995 15