Sailplanes available?

[Wad Cutter]

Uyraell.and Leif, what ever the problem was it's gone. I tried again and had no problem opening the links. What a fantasic motor sail plane. Thank you for another wonderful plane. Uyraell, I got your PM thank you and will answer as soon as I wake up and get some coffee. Thank you for your very kind reply. Johnny I now see the problem you had with the leading edge of the aircraft. Very smart idea using that antenna. Another tool to add to the collection when not in use. I've been meaning to go to the hardware store and buy a few peices of metal tybing in different diameters. I have then in wood but metal is so much smother. Off to more coffee. wady

[murphyaa]

Add another sailplane to the list:


I'm uploading it to the downloads section right now. Hopefully it'll find a thermal soon so it can lift off.

1:36 scale with a 26 inch wingspan.

[Uyraell]

Very beautifully done, Aaron my friend!
Not only have you captured the look of the glider , you've somehow captured the "character" of it too. This is hard to achieve with any model, but more especially so with aircraft and ships. You've achieved it superlatively with this and the WB57.

Kind and Respectful Regards Aaron my friend, Uyraell.

[rickstef]

it has caught a thermal, and is spiraling

[Leif Ohlsson]

Thank you, Aaron, both for doing this model, and for making it a free download from this site! This will occupy me for some time.

Prospective downloaders should know that Aarons original as published here has the full & correct color scheme of striking red fuselage with light yellow trim lines.

The model is also designed very cleverly so that anyone wishing to add clear plastic film for a proper canopy can do so with a good chance of success.

The wings are two-piece, which means enlarging is much easier.

I'm grateful for the free download on many grounds, not least since it means I can tinker with it, and - with your permission, Aaron - possibly share the tinkering if and when I'm done tinkering. Your generosity will continue to spread, I'm sure.

Grateful regards, Leif

[murphyaa]

Tinker away Leif.

I'm not too sure about enlarging though. I got it as big as I could while staying within the print margins. (For those who don't know, the box on my models represents 7 inches by 10 inches, which is universally accepted as being within the print margins of most printers out there.

[richkat]

Here is abuild of Aarons (Oddball) Wampire II. Aaron has been kind to offer this for free in the download section here at Papermodelers.com! I think it came out good......Rich

[Wad Cutter]

Thank you Aaron for another great add to the collection. Beautiful bird. And richkat I thought your model did the author a great deal of justice. Well done. Now if I could only somehow add iI into my flight sim software. What do you think Johnnyfly2? wc

[Leif Ohlsson]

I started a thread of its own for the Fi-1 sailplane, since I'm working on it. I'll repeat a digest of the Fi-1 info from this thread into that eventually. And I'll continue to post other sailplane stuff here. Please do the same! - Leif

[Leif Ohlsson]

There was a time when painting a club-built or factory-built sailplane wasn't even on the agenda. The odd factory name, or name of the type; judiciously applied cheatlines, alright - but never painting the entire aircraft. I believe the enthusiasts in that era was as economical with expenses and labor, as they subconsciously wanted to preserve a full view of the labor of love they had alread put into their aircraft.

The British vintage glider Slingsby Kirby Kite is a good example in point, displaying its old, yellowed fabric covering - and it is still airborne! I don't know if it is cotton or synthetic, but there is a very strong impression of the 1920-30s here.

Note the intricate veneer pattern in the nose section!

A prime example, of course, is this beautiful US vintage glider Bowlus BA-100 Albatross (there's a Fiddlers Green model of it!). It's magnificent wood fuselage with shaped metal plate nose strongly resembles the Swedish Fi-1 (as was noted already at the time; the Fi-1 is just a few years younger):

The came the era when it was realized that gliders actually might survive for long enough time to make the sun's weakening of the fabric an issue. And gliders were painted all over, perhaps also to increase the ease with which a coat of paint facilitated invisible repairs - just add a patch of fabric or ply; sand, varnish & paint; and no-one's the wiser.

Today, it seems the tide is turning again, perhaps as a result of new, more UV-resilient synthetic covering materials - does anyone know if that is so? Judging by photos from sites like Airliners.net, Flickr, and others, vintage gliders in natural finish are again valued very highly, and rightly so .

Here are a few more examples of restored gliders, which probably at one time were painted all over, but no longer are so (I got all the sailplanes here by googling for "vintage gliders" or "vintage sailplanes" and looking at all the images coming up):

Slingsby T31 - note how dlearly you can see gussets in the rear fuselage.

Zlin Z24 Krajanek - note how transparent the wing covering is.

PIK-7 Harakka III - a Finnish improved version of an old Russian design.

Even when a coat of striking paint is applied, the fabric-covered surfaces are often left clear varnished, or just in their natural synthetic state (sic!). Here are two beautiful red Slingsby gliders:

Note how beautifully the sun shines through the wing covering of this rare Slingsby T13 Petrel. I believe it is the only exemplar left in Europe. This is the type I know of which bears the closest resemblance to the Orlik.

This Slingsby T30B Prefect is painted much like how I imagined the ply cover on the Inka might have been cut without having seen this photo at them time - interesting….

Even when all the wood on a restored vintage glider is painted over, it still gains a lot from leaving the fabric covered areas unpainted. Compare the following two gliders:

I love this Rhönlerche two-seater as a type, and the photo of it landing in snow in particular. Notice that the restoration has included a full paint job, immaculately done. A beautiful job. And yet…

I think the translucent unpainted fabric covering on this L-Spatz 55 is so much more intriguing, don't you agree? It gives an air of lightness to this basic steel-tube fuselage and wood-wing glider. Perhaps the woodwork, although structurall sound, simply was beyond salvation for showing-off purposes…

All of this is just to say that there are many challenges and rewards to be gained if we as papermodelers could come a bit closer to the powerful effect gliders such as these have on almost everyone who sees them. Or what do you say of this photo:

This is a rare two-seater Hungarian Rubik R11B Cimbora, with the sun shining through its almost translucent wing covering. Note the various degrees of shading on the interior framework; ribs are different from spars; which, in turn, are different from diagonals.

Photos like these are what I like to look at for making the clear-doped recolored versions of models (originally designed by others) like the French Fauvel AV36 tailless sailplane; the Slovenian Inka vintage glider; and now the Swedish Fi-1 vintage sailplane. I have them, and others, as a screensaver slideshow right now.

Leif