Down Memory Lane - From the Log Books #21

[Guest TOSGcentral]

MEMORY LANE #21.

 

 

THE COMING OF GLASS.

 

 

Glass sailplanes have been with us for a surprisingly long length of time. What was to become the world’s first glass glider (the Phoenix) was first conceived by a German university group in 1951. A shortage of funds saw the project delayed and during that delay the new materials became available and the design construction was switched to ‘glass’. The Phoenix first flew in 1957, which is now over 50 years ago!

 

 

Phoenix was possibly an apt name for a German gliding movement rising again from the ashes of it’s pre war successes. But there was nothing mythical about the ‘glass ships’! They abruptly catapulted the gliding world into automatic higher glide angles and penetration and thus opened up an entire new vista in soaring methodology.

 

 

As in the pre-war days the German Akafliegs spearheaded the path ahead but this time the rest of the world was also getting it’s slice of the action. Development of glass gliders became widespread from the early 1960s onwards in many nations.

 

 

Finland in particular did very well and produced World Championship winning designs. Even Brazil which, for mainly geographic reasons, did not have a strong gliding movement came up with its own glass designs – the very elegant Minuano and Urupema being world class gliders in both looks and performance. Interestingly UK did not enter the race and stuck to traditional wooden gliders.

 

 

But once again Germany and its Akafliegs were to dominate and we saw, in a different form, a re-run of the pre-war ‘super ships’. These aircraft were not however necessarily unique because a glass aircraft has a mould and once you have the mould producing more is a lot easier than for example knocking up a few of the massive and complicated wooden Moatzagotls.

 

 

In previous traditional years the Phoenix may well have been unique but in fact eight of them were built. This had the consequent benefit of giving the new fledgling designers a lot of hands-on with production and materials that was to pay dividends later in full production manufacture and further design work. These factors also reflect the speed with which the glass ships did get into series production along with the proliferation of specialist German single seat high performance manufacturers.

 

 

But the years of which I now write were indeed another time of the ‘Super Ships’ that would carve the portals to the world of soaring now so well known and accepted today.

 

 

I have selected three as, in my view, the most influential types to pave the way forward and then a further four types that saw the start of production designs.

 

 

The first of them, and the real trailblazer, was the BS1 that first flew in 1962.

 

 

BS1. This was an 18 metre Open Class machine with a torpedo shaped fuselage, positive and reflex flapped with full airbrakes (but a long way back and not really strong enough to dominate the massive performance and intertia the sailplane possessed). However the machine did have a tail braking parachute that you could jettison and this tamed it somewhat.

 

 

The ‘seating’ position was fully flat on your back in a long and narrow cockpit with not much room (much like the early Fokas and Cobra). Just about everything on the glider was optimised for performance.

 

 

The BS1 was unusual in another way – it was not actually a product of an Akaflieg but at the same time it was! The name ‘BS1’ is after the designer – Bjorn Stender , who was a graduate student of the Brunswick Akaflieg and this was his first design. It was commissioned by a South African to build a world beater, which he proceeded to do. So the first of the glass superships followed an established pathway of trailblazing based on money and desires.

 

 

Bjorn did his own test flying and was tragically killed in 1963 when a BS1 broke up in flight. Bjorn got out but fell prey to the German personal parachute system – which is worth describing for interest.

 

 

In this system you don just a harness and then get in. The ‘chute mainly stays in the glider, normally forming part of the seat rest. You simply clip the ‘chute to the harness with a couple of snap connectors and then put the seat harness on. The ‘chute is then deployed a by a static line when needed.

 

 

A static line depends on being attached to something with more drag than your body! The bit left of the BS1 that the static line was attached to was smaller than Bjorn so the chute did not deploy and there is no manual over-ride.

 

 

By the time I arrived in Germany in 1966 the BS1 was already famous. It was setting records and winning competions – there was just nothing like it. One main claim to fame was that it was the first glider to achieve a 300 Km triangle in thermal conditions without circling.

 

 

I saw the first one in 1967 at Kirchem unter Teck when a very sprog Grunau pilot but now the proud owner of my own B Spatz. Also on the airfield was a Phoenix. Looking at those sleek glass gliders was awesome to somebody who felt they may never get good enough to fly be allowed to fly a Ka6!

 

 

After Bjorn’s death Glasflugel took over the design, made some alterations and produced 18 of them as the BS1b. One of these came to UK in the hands of Sir Peter Scott which he had expressly purchased to win the UK Championships. He did not do that, I had a hand in why he did not, but that is a lengthy story that perhaps I will recount elsewhere. Suffice to say he was beaten on the last day by an SHK flown by John Delafield.

 

 

From personal experience I can tell you that the BS1 was a pig of a thing to rig – it was as heavy as lead!

 

 

The aircraft was sold on the second hand market and became based at the RAFGSA centre as a private machine which was made accessible as a de-facto club machine. I obtained permission to fly it and hared off for a twiddle.

 

 

When I arrived the aircraft was de-rigged in a corner of the hangar. The day before it had been put through a fence on an outlanding attempt. While repairable it would take a lot of repairing. I do not know what happened to it – but after all these years and so many gliders I wanted to fly and did not, the BS1 remains the one that I really needed to fly – it was a truly iconic glider!

 

 

D36 Circe. Darmstadt Akaflieg had always been dominant in German glider trailblazers and they were not going to be put in second place for long by the BS1! So they came up with the D36. The sailplane was named after a mythical sorceress, daughter of the sun, and she was a witch all right!

 

 

This was another 18 metre super ship, fully flapped and (challengingly) totally lacking in airbrakes! Instead it had only a tail parachute which was non-jettisonable!

 

 

This sailplane had a massive impact on the world and a year after it first flew in 1964 it went to take second place in the World Championships that were held in the UK the next year.

 

 

Of particular significance is the three students that built it (Lemke, Waibel and Hoolighaus) – all of these went on to dominate glass fibre sailplane manufacturing design.

 

 

H301 Open Libelle. This inclusion may come as a surprise, but this glider was years ahead of its time, first flew in 1964, was probably the first production glass glider intended for quantity manufacture and went nowhere because it was totally eclipsed by the new long span ‘super ships’ as it was what it was and so was condemned to share the same ‘paddock’ with them.

 

 

The ‘301 was an Open Class sailplane with flaps, retracting undercarriage, water ballast etc – but it was only 15 metre span! There was no way it could compete with the then current BS1 and D36! So it only lasted until 1969 when it was ‘superseded’ by a much lesser appointed replacement that was more appropriate to the market at the time.

 

 

Of more particular note is that this glider foreshadowed by years what was to become the new Racing Class in competitions, but by that time design evolution had already passed it by. At least a couple of 301s flew successfully in Australia and maybe still do.

 

 

Pause for Breath. What is becoming obvious is that the stepping stone from the introduction of ‘glass’ to series production was now much shorter. There was also a very obviously pent up market to get their hands on ‘super ship’ performance at an affordable price.

 

 

So I want to cover also some of what I believe were the ‘stepping stone’ types. Or, if you like, what became of the trail blazers before we get into main stream production and development in a later part to this series.

 

 

Early Production.

 

 

I will be following up with more detail on the production types mentioned below later in the series, but I feel it is apt to introduce them in the context that I am recounting.

 

 

The H301 was one as I have already covered above. This went on to become the H201 Libelle designed for Standard Class and was hugely successful.

 

 

The Phoenix design was taken over by Bolkow and became the Phoebus in three different forms. The type made its mark but was destined to ultimately go nowhere in production development terms.

 

 

The BS1 went nowhere after it’s initial production run. Possibly due to the death of Bjorn but mainly due to the type as being too demanding and alien from what most purchasers had been trained and brought up on.

 

 

The D36 was in the same boat although was promptly developed into the Scheicher ASW12, slightly refined but with all the same problems plus no airbrakes. It did not last long.

 

 

Two gliders stand out – the first was the Nimbus which became the first refined production super ship and achieved outstanding success. The design learnt from the trailblazers and tamed them into something more manageable for the average punter (with a lot of dollars!)

 

 

The second was the Kestrel 17 built by Glasflugel. This was also a totally new design that was to prove very popular and again not too demanding to operate.

 

 

Of interest was an attempted return to the Super Ships by Glasflugel who developed the 604 – a 22 metre Kestrel but effectively a totally new type in its own right. This was a bid to compete with the Nimbus that nearly did but not quite – so not many were built.

 

 

NEXT TIME.

 

 

I think that I had better do something about the competition classes as these really do dominate what is happening in gliding. But equally what is happening in gliding can dominate (in market terms) what then happens in competition.

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Great review Tony - as always.

 

Was there ever in the early days of the glass ships a "backyard moulds" process?

 

I know that in both the early days of glass fibre kayaks and sailing boats someone - or a group would produce a new type and a mould to match. The mould would then "do the rounds" - either because you helped build it or because you paid a fee.

 

You would pop your kayak out and then pass it on to the next person.

 

Did this ever happen in gliding?

 

Also more - much more on the Nimbus please.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest TOSGcentral]

Thanks for the kind words Mike – but I do want readers to remember that what I am writing are very personal views only about situations as I perceived them at the time, with an overlay of what subsequent experience and knowledge has since given me.

 

 

Yup – I will be returning to the Nimbus for sure.

 

 

Regarding your main query on moulds. I knew, or heard, of no such thing and feel it would have been highly unlikely.

 

 

The advent of glass was so obviously a world beater and totally new dimension that design work would have been jealously guarded by the Akafliegs that made the moulds and then subsequently by the manufacturer’s that bought the rights and developed the prototypes for an eagerly waiting market. There was no reason to give anything away and every reason not to.

 

 

T.