Sailplanes available?

[Jan Kytop]

Here a very important database for all the gliders:
http://dbj2mcl.maquettes-planeurs.ch/

[Leif Ohlsson]

Jan, you absolutely swamp me - I had no idea there were that many out-of-print books and other resources out there. Thank you! And I can't even blame my not-so-good French for not finding it, since your Swiss source has an option for viewing it in English!

Swiss source j2mc Planeurs

Here are the three main branches from this golden source that Jan gave us:

• A comprehensive list of all (sic!) gliders and sailplanes, expanding into data and drawings for each type.

• A list of all main persons involved in designing gliders, vintage and modern. Expands into datasheets for the gliders they have designed.

• A list of scanned out-of-print books and other sources (also e-libraries for photos, etc.).

There is also a list of books still in print, which expands into sources for these books. In fact, all three branches of this database have search options. All resources are reached from the main page (and don't forget to change language there, if yo prefer English).

In the list of glider & sailplane types I found the answer to something that's been bothering me during this search for vintage glider material - were there no Swedish-designed vintage gliders? I couldn't think of a single one, but the Swiss database could.

It listed two German license-built types (and they could have been amended with a couple of more, I believe, such as the Bergfalke II 55, DFS Weihe, Kranich, Grunau Baby and SG-38).

And there was also an all-Swedish glider from 1942!:



This is the Fi-1 glider, built by the the Aircraft Industry at Halmstad (on the west coast of Sweden, some 150 kilometers, 100 miles, south of Göteborg where I live. Wikipedia (in Swedish) adds some history - seven of the type were made in all, two of them sold abroad. It appears the company made most of the license-built German gliders subsidized by the Swedish Air Force to increasing the interest in flying during the war years and immediately after.



Above, the only extant exemplar of the Fi-1. The "TF" registration stems from this aircraft's period at the Reykyavik Glider Club, Iceland. This aircraft can be seen at the Sailplane Museum of Ålleberg, Sweden:



The Fi-1, unfortunately, was not a success. Writes Sailplane & Glider vol 18 no. 8 Aug 1950 on the occasion of the World Championships held at Örebro, in the middle of Sweden:

"Except the Fi-1 the Swedes have done little but build Weihes. The Fi-1, although fully aerobatic, turned out to be too heavy, yet it did well at Orebro in the hands of a Danish pilot." (p. 169)

Still a bit unclear - an empty weight of 165 kg, and max t.o.w. of 260 kg resulting in a L/D of 23 at 65 km/h doesn't seem too bad. And fully aerobatic, to boot.

The Fi-1 bears a strong resemblance to both the Polish SZD-11 Gil ("Bullfinch"), and the SZD-25 Lis ("Fox"), although they were produced 10 to 15 years later than the Fi-1. Both do exist as a papermodels:



Combining the fuselage and canopy of the Gil, plus the wings of the Lis, plus a little tweaking here and there, might just do the job. What an attractive idea - the one an only Swedish vintage sailplane I'm aware of to date. And the colour scheme, according to the Swedish drawing archived at the j2mc Planeurs site was my favourite - cream wings and tails, with crimson fuselage pod. One could always dream...

Back to the books at the j2mc Planeurs site - as an example I downloaded Hans Jacob's Werkstattpraxis für den Bau von Gleit- und Segelflugzeugen, 1935. Studying details of the various vintage gliders that have been up for discussion here, and comparing them to Hans Jacob's book, I can very well believe that this must have been a kind of sailplane designer's bible at the time!

The book is full of detailed sketches and photos of wood-and-fabric building practices, which I love. Here's rib & spar details, plus right and wrong method for designing wire attachment points.



Have you ever wondered how those rubber rolls used as shock absorbers between the landing skid and the fuselage actually were fastened - here's the answer (p. 103):



Already this quick sampling of the Swiss j2mc Planeurs site demonstrates the use one can have of it. Thank you, indeed, Jan!

Next time: Two more vintage glider eBook library sources, to make the list complete.

Leif

[richkat]

Aaron of OddBall produtions has been kind to offer up the Wampir II tailess glider in kit form in the PM download section...lets hope it's not the last glider from him.....Rich

[Leif Ohlsson]

Rich - thanks for the reminder. So we check our new find, the Swiss j2mc Planeurs site for SZD-13 Wampir II - and find no drawing, no photos. BUT - we should take care to search for the right Wampir. Here it is: SZD-20X Wampir II.

Nice photo, and a drawing. Plus, most importantly, links to other sources: The Polish sailplanes site we've visited before. There we find a full load of data & photos. I thought this one was particularly endearing…:



In addition, there's a link to the Nurflügel site, and to two books in print.

Aaron Murphy's model of the SZD-20X Wampir available from our own site, is a joy to behold:



One more find of a sailplane noted to the minutes!

[Wad Cutter]

Leif, I have been following this thread about gliders and I am getting real tired of reinserting my jaw back in my head. This is an outstanding find. Most of which above and beyond me but still very enjoyable. From the very first post this has taken me and us on a journey through history and flight. The SZD-20X Wampir II is a glider that ios right up there with Star Wars and the the fact that it's a free D/L makes it all the better. This glider is now on my must do list. Not that I will be able to fly her but has a place on my ceiling. I can't thank you and all the others who have added to this. I just don't have the words. Wad Cutter

[Leif Ohlsson]

Hello Waddie - can I add, to the superior Swiss source from Jan described in the post before the last, the two other souces for eBooks about sailplanes that I promised, just to keep them together?

Scale Soaring UK Library - It is very easy to browse these very attractive virtual book-shelves:



At this library you just mouse over each book to see the title and country of origin more clearly. Clicking on it downloads the scanned book as a pdf-file. Note that there are four bookcases in all, not just the first one you see. As an example of books available from this library I downloaded Philip Wills, On being a bird, 1956.



Some very quaint methods of methods from the era used in distance gliding compettitions. How's this one for solving the problem of confirming that a pre-selected turning point really has been achieved:

Originally Posted by Wills p. 72-73

… My wife and I solved this problem in the following way. An aerodrome is selected for the turning-point, and from my estimated average speed I calculate how many hours it will take me to reach it after 'getting away'. When she sees me achieve this she waits for the agreed lapse of time, and then telephones the control officer at the aerodrome selected. She then tells him, in effect, 'Please go to the window, and overhead you will see a sailplane circling. Please then fire a green Very light at it and come back and confirm that I am right.'

The observer either comes back to the 'phone and says, in a surprised voice, that the machine is there, or else that it is not. In the latter case, she rings off, but phones again half an hour later with the same request. If the sailplane fails to reach the turning-point, one ends up with one more disillusioned control-tower officer. If it does, it has to circle round the aerodrome until the next half-hour strikes, when, on seeing the green light, the pilot knows he has been marked, and turns for home.

This was obviously before the age of onboard cameras and radios! Funny, since in my days during the 90s it was still film that had to be developed; the same technique might just as well have been used during the 50s…


Wally Kahn & BGA UK eBook Collection - This is the second eBook library stocking scanned out-of-print books - let's not forget it, the library at the British Vintage Glider Club. As an example of what's there, I downloaded the following:

• The Art of Soaring Flight by Wolf Hirth, 1935. A classic book, translated into English. Includes chapters by several other authors.

• The Slingsby Sailplanes by Martin Simons, 1996 (very recent!). Drawings & photos galore. As with the Hungarian book I liked so much, this is an incredibly generous gift. A talented paper-model designer could spend the rest of his or her life making Slingsby gliders out of this book. How about the Slingsby Petrel (p. 84 in book, p. 86 of pdf):



This is just a very small sampling of what's available at these three incredibly generous sites. Time now to explore…

Leif

PS. At both these sites there are collections of film clips, both period clips of vintage gliders, and modern clips of flying restored vintage gliders. Beautiful - but I leave them for you to explore on your own. Here they are:

• Scale Soaring UK - Movies (period clips)
• Scale Soaring UK - Chris Williams' Videos (modern clips)
• Vintage Glider Club - Gallery - Movies (modern & period clips of vintage gliders)

[Johnflys2]

Leif, your last post with all the great links, provided us with a wealth of information. I have downloaded many books and will be reading for many weeks. The videos were a big surprise not knowing that any of these existed. These will be viewed many more times. Thank you so much for sharing. The down side is, it's cutting into my building and Sim flying time. John

[sparrowhawk]

I agree with John. Right at the start of my summer holidays this will give me plenty of stuff to read.
As a little aside: I like the combination of vintage sailplanes and glider tugs of the same vintage. Here is a superb free download model of the Caudron Aiglon, a very elegant french lightplane and here is a very freshly issued Stampe SV4 C, a classic biplane that should make a beautiful combination with a sleek sailplane.
Look at all the other models from that site too, there are some real gems amongst them!

[Wad Cutter]

I don't know how to thank for this treasure chest of videos and books Leif. Now to find the time and explore it to it's fullest. I pick one of the CHRIS WILLIAMS videos.
ULTIMATE MINIMOA.wmv - YouTube!
The soaring of this beautiful glider with the music in the back ground is better then the best it could be. It took me away. I have too much to learn about card stock modeling and gliders plus now I have to learn about Radio Control. I hope I have the funds and help to get into this. I have a glider a friend gave me but it only had rudder and elevator control and nothing else. So it might be better to look around to find a model with everything else that this glider is missing. But free is still free. If I can ever find it I will post a photo. Thank you Leif.

[Leif Ohlsson]

John - apologies for causing you to lose sim & building time ; hope the reading will make up for it somehow, providing inspiration for new gliding adventures through the ages?

Martin - what a good idea to use Philippe Rennesson's models as tug aircraft for vintage gliders. Philippe is a member here as well, under the name of "Criquet". And you could make up a whole tug & glider combo from his site by using his Fauvel AV36 tailless glider as the sailplane behind one of the tug aircraft you mention. (Read more about the Fauvel on this site here; if you like, you could also download a wood-textured version of his AV-36 here (1/16) and here (1/33).

Waddie - thanks for the Minimoa video; that was really something! Blushingly, not really having watched them, I must admit I did not appreciate that Chris Williams' videos were of models. They are very beautiful indeed.

I believe I'm now close to my saturation point in this search for sources of material relevant to sailplane paper modeling. Getting back to really existing paper models of sailplanes, this final installment for a while is about two useful resources for spiffying up instrument panels in existing kits.


Oliver Theede's vintage sailplane site

This is a site of wonderful large models of vintage sailplanes, such at the L-Spatz, Grunau Baby, Minimoa, or Ka3. But there is also quite a lot of documentary material for each glider - plus a very useful resource for paper modelers, namely high-quality images of sailplane instruments and instrument panels, both vintage and modern. Here are two samples of the content on the vintage glider instrument page:



At the bottom of that page there are som very fine panels, ready to grab:



For those making models of modern glass- and carbon-fibre sailplanes, there is an excellent page of modern sailplane instruments, including full panels.

Just to see how one could use a resource like this, I made new instrument panels for the Orlik sailplane, which just arrived in my mailbox. (It was published in the GPM Kartonówka 2-3, 2003, available in Europe from GPM, or in the US from the Card Model Shop.)



What you see here is (left) a sketch from a three-view drawing downloaded from Scale Soaring UK, of what the instrument panel in the Orlik really looked like. Top right are the parts from the GPM Orlik kit. Note how the model have the instruments correctly divided between the nose former and a separate panel closer to the pilot,but incorrectly placed in some cases. Further, the built-up, closed-in panel does not seem to conform to the sketch in the drawing, which I trust.

At the bottom right is my attempt to place the instruments according to the sketch. I opted for a bare panel, simulating a simple bent metal sheet, with the instruments sticking out on the back side. That is also more interesting to model. Here's a close-up to demonstrate that all the detail really is there, even if you won't be able to see it in the small scales we build:



On the yellow, front former: altimeter & clock (I'm guessing about the clock). On the main, metal panel (left to right): variometer, turn & bank, old-fashioned variometer (looks like a thermometer), and airspeed. Compass centred, on top.


The Aerocockpits site

Here's another examples from another source for general aviation instruments, the Aerocockpits.com. This source has been treated previously at length in this thread.

What you see is (left) a photo of the instrument panel of the Sroka. The source for that photo is the source we are quite used to now, namely the Polish Sailplanes site; then find Sroka.



Top right - this is the instrument panel from the GPM kit of the Sroka, in as good scan as can be made from the kit. Note that the placement of most instruments is fairly accurate, but the instruments themselves are figments of the author's imagination. For one thing, I do not believe that a 1950s trainer glider in Poland was equipped with an artificial horizon.

So, bottom right, is my rendering of a Sroka panel. I replaced the artificial horizon with a largeish compass, which I think is what we see in the photo. The Sroka, like many sailplanes of its era, did have a gyro (turn indicator). It could thus be flown blind in clouds if you had the experience and competence, although that is quite hard. An artificial horizon certainly would have been a dream for pilots of the period, but I don't think they had them.

The instrument at far left of the panel I'm not quite sure about, but I have adde a "nose up-down" indicator, which just might be possible. Although not strictly necessary at all to fly a glider blind (watching your airspeed works just as well, and is more important), such an instrument seem to have been common in gliders of the 1930s to early -50s era. My guess for the vertical instrument at the far right, culled from the original photo, is an oldfashioned type of variometer, looking much like a thermometer. This is like the Orlik above.



In the close-up above you will notice that switches and plates from the original photo are also included in the remade panel. The separate compass section at bottom will be backed up with further layers to get to the proper thickness shown iby the photo. Finally a red T-shaped release handle will be made from wire.

***

As you can see from both examples, the instruments lose a lot (most in fact) of detail when downsized. Even at 1/16 they will be small and hard to see. It is a pity for such good originals. It's nice to know they're there, though.

Programs used were Photoshop for isolating the single instruments, and for culling small parts from the photo and straighten them up. Final assembly and panel backgrounds were made in Illustrator, importing the photoshopped instruments. The whole job could be done just as well in e.g. Gimp. The main difficulty is not the technical side, but to to save or remember where useful images can be had, isolate them, and arrange them over a scan of the original part.

I should also say that I very much wanted to use the type of instrumens shown earlier by John, in his screenshot of the FS Minimoa. John even sent me special screenshots of them:



Scaling them down to the size required for a paper model, however, they turned out too indistinct. The sharpt colors of the Aerocockpits instruments are better for this purpose. On the other hand, those are quite unsuitable for a simulator, where they would look much too garish.

For the moment, I'll step back, looking forward to when Roman Seissler gets a bit of quiet on the professional side of his life, so that he'll be able to give us more about his sailplane models, the Bergfalke II 55 among them.

Leif