and Motor Glitters /Andrew Coates ICiBttattg naf Jane's World Sailplanes and Motor Gliders Jane's World Sailplanes and Motor Gliders /Andrew Coates New edition Jane's Publishing Company London • Sydney Copyright © Andrew Coates 1978, 1980 First published in 1978 This edition published in 1980 by Jane's Publishing Company Macdonald and Jane's Publishing Group Limited Paulton House, 8 Shepherdess Walk London Nl 7LW Printed in Great Britain by Netherwood Dalton & Co Ltd Designed by Paul Minns ISBN 0 71060017 8 Contents Photograph credits " Introduction ' Australia " Austria 1 2 Brazil 18 Canada 20 Czechoslovakia 21 Finland 23 France 29 West Germany 43 India 113 Italy 116 Japan 120 Netherlands 122 Poland 123 Romania 135 South Africa 139 Switzerland 140 United Kingdom 146 USA 172 USSR 195 Yugoslavia 198 International gliding records 201 FAI World Gliding Championships 1937-1978 202 Index by country 203 Index of aircraft types 205 Photograph credits Aero Svet: Page 199 D. Kibbe: Page 185 Akaflieg Braunschweig: Page 44 Howard Levy: Page 180 Roger Barrett: Page 197 Dr D. J. Marsden: Page 20 Charles E. Brown: Page 29 M. McGeorge: Page 86 Caproni Vizzola: Page 117 Lorna Minton: Pages 62, 153 via Andrew Coates: Pages 12, 13, 14, 16, 21, 23, 26, 37, 47, 48, Monnett: Page 186 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57,64,65,66,80,82,84,88, 90, 91, 92,93, Oberlerchner: Page 15 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 103, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 119, 122, Cyril Peckham: Page 146 123, 125, 126, 128, 130, 132, 135, 137, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, Philip Pegler: Page 169 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, Vico Rosaspina: Page 116 165, 166, 168, 170, 174, 176, 181, 183 Peter Ross: Pages 81, 87 Coventry Gliding Club: Page 77 Scheibe: Pages 75, 78 J. B. Cynk: Pages 124, 127 Schempp-Hirth: Pages 85, 89 Eiri Avion: Page 24 Schleicher (via Sailplane & Gliding): Page 104 N. Ellison: Pages 162, 163, 171 Peter Selinger: Page 142 Flow Technology 2000 Ltd: Page 31 Schweizer: Pages 188, 189, 191, 193 Jim Foreman (via Soaring Society of America): Page 173 Brian Service: Page 35 John Glossop: Pages 22, 68, 72, 106 Slings by: Page 167 Hans Smit: Pages 45, 73, 102 Wojciech Gorgolewski: Page 134 Soaring Society of America: Page 179 D. Gossett: Page 171 Start + Plug: Page 111 J. M. Gradidge: Pages 136, 172 G. Sunderland: Page 11 Grob: Page 67 Peter Taylor: Page 38 Rauni Heinanen: Page 25 G. Uveges: Pages 129, 177, 178, 183 Anne Ince: Pages 83, 194, 200 Peter Warren: Page 164 via Jane's All the World's Aircraft: Pages 9, 10, 17, 18, 19, 27, 28, Wassmer: Page 42 30, 32, 33,34, 36,39,40,41,43,46,49, 51,58,69, 70, 71, 74, Ann Welch: Page 152 76, 79, 100, 101, 112, 113, 114, 115, 118, 120, 121, 131, 133, C. mils: Pages 53, 195 138, 175, 182, 190, 192, 198 U. H. Walter: Pages 59, 60, 61, 63 Introduction The complete history of gliding is impossible to relate in a beginning of 1976. few short sentences. For centuries man had dreamed of Not all gliding is competitive of course, and large numbers of spreading his wings and soaring like a bird but it was not to people fly simply for the sheer pleasure of it all. Their aircraft be until the closing years of the nineteenth century that tend to be less aerodynamically advanced and usually more experimenters like Otto Lilienthal in Germany and Octave spartan in their equipment; these gliders form the bulk of the Chanute in the USA first succeeded in cheating gravity - if 191 types described in this book. Drawn from twenty only for a short time - in their crude and dangerous nations, they embrace historic pre-war gliders as well as a hang-gliders. But credit for building the first true controlled number of experimental 'one-off' and home-built designs. glider must go to the acknowledged pioneers of powered Also included are a number of motor gliders, a relatively new flight, Orville and Wilbur Wright, who made numerous breed of aircraft that has evolved through the need to flights over the sand dunes at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, dispense with the ground-crew and launching aids necessary in their 1902 glider. for conventional glider operations. By the mid-1920s, pilots were regularly returning flight times For convenience, the contents have been divided measured in hours, generally by using the up-currents alphabetically by country, and each entry consists of a short around hills to slope-soar. It was not long, however, before technical description, table of data and both a specially they learned how to use thermals to gain the height necessary prepared three-view drawing and a photograph. for cross-country flying. Most of this pioneering work was The author would like to acknowledge the valuable help done in Germany, a country with a particularly strong which has been received from many different sources all over gliding movement centred at the Wasserkuppe in the Rhon the world, and from the many friends, both personal and in district. In fact, most of the credit for early aerodynamic gliding clubs and the sailplane industry, without whom this advances in sailplane design must go to the German book could not have been compiled. Thanks are due to Mrs Akafliegs which, by the mid-1939s, were designing G. Bryce-Smith, Editor of Sailplane and Gliding, the official streamlined cantilever-winged aircraft with enclosed journal of the British Gliding Association; Mrs R. Harwood, cockpits and long tapered wings, the forebears of today's Mr C. Wills and John Taylor ofJane's All the World's Aircraft sailplanes. for the loan of photographs, and to the many individual The Second World War forced something of a recession on photographers credited at the front of this book; and not least the development of gliding as a sport and the machines of the to my Editor, Paul Ellis, for all his help. 1950s were little different from those of the pre-war years, although there were a few war-surplus training gliders Andrew Coates ARAeS about. The great revolution in sailplane design and Hertfordshire construction was to come about in the 1960s with the April 1978 marriage of special laminar-flow wing sections to glassfibre as a building material. Glassfibre confers great structural strength for relatively low weight and has the added Introduction to new edition advantage of being extremely smooth, essential where drag has to be kept to a minimum. It is also quite easy to work, and Jane's World Sailplanes and Motor Gliders, first published in several amateur-built sailplanes use glassfibre as the prime 1978, has been substantially revised and updated to produce material. Thus, by the end of that decade, sailplanes had this edition. Seventeen new aircraft are included, drawings evolved into sleek, comfortable machines, often of great have been amended to take account of modifications to beauty, capable of phenomenal performance, yet with existing types, and there are many new photographs. handling characteristics that made them as safe to fly for relatively inexperienced sport pilots as for the most dedicated competition fliers. But sailplane design has not stood still and the last decade has witnessed some startling advances in the quest for better and better performance. The modern competition machine can incorporate an impressive array of performance aids, ranging from camber-changing flaps on the wing trailing edge, which can be drooped to provide extra drag for landing or cranked up marginally to reduce drag for high-speed cross-country flying between thermals, to water ballast tanks in the wings which increase the gross weight and aid penetration. The number of pilots completing flights of more than 1,000 km (620 ml) has increased dramatically; of the 33 FAI Diplomas awarded, twelve have been claimed since the Schneider ES 52 Kookaburra /Australia Edmund Schneider, who built the Grunau Baby in Germany with a nose wheel instead of a skid to ease ground handling. and was one of the pioneer sailplane manufacturers, was The cockpit has been enlarged and a wheel-brake is invited by the Gliding Federation of Australia to set up a incorporated. sailplane factory in Australia after the Second World War. The fuselage is constructed from plywood-covered wooden He first produced the Kangaroo two-seater, which flew in frames and stringers. The one-piece blown canopy is hinged 1953, followed by the Grunau Baby 4, the Kookaburra, aft and there is a window on each side under the wing root to Nymph, Kingfisher, Arrow and Boomerang. improve visibility. The three-piece wing is of conventional The ES 52 Kookaburra is a two-seat trainer and is used by wooden construction with two spars. The aircraft is the majority of Australian gliding clubs. The original semi-aerobatic. Kookaburra first flew in 1952, and the ES 52B in 1959. The model B is an improved version with the wing span increased from 11.7m (38 ft 4V2 in) to 14.86 m (48 ft 9 in), and is fitted Data ES 52 Kookaburra Manufacturer Schneider First flight June 1954 Wing span 11.7 m (38 ft 4V2 in) Length 7.9 m (25 ft 11 in) Height 1.38m (4ft 6V2 in) Wing area 15.0 m2 (161.5 sq ft) Wing section Gottingen 549/M-12 Aspect ratio 9.13 Empty weight 220 kg (485 Ib) Max weight 393 kg (866 Ib) Water ballast None Max wing loading 26.2 kg/m2 (5.36 Ib/sq ft) Max speed 119 kt (220 km/h) Stalling speed 36 kt (67 km/h) Min sinking speed at 39 kt (72 km/h) 1.05 m (3.4 ft)/sec Max rough air speed 81.5 kt (151 km/h) Best glide ratio at 44 kt (81 km/h) 20 Australia / Schneider ES GOB Super Arrow The Super Arrow is a single-seat Standard Class sailplane constructed in one piece, wingtip to wingtip.