Hey my coffee is pretty good;-) but normally my pics include sturdier drinks :-)

Jens

Originally Posted by Segelflieger

Hey my coffee is pretty good;-) but normally my pics include sturdier drinks :-)

Jens

well anytime after 11 is 'sturdier drink' time

ahh yes the cufflinks, they need a shorter stem on them.

I hope our small but excellent segelflieger is still working on those wonderful constructions of his. We anxiously await some reports

Originally Posted by HerkS

I hope our small but excellent segelflieger I still working on those wonderful constructions of his. We anxiously await some reports

Absolutely! Good to see you back.

Hi guys,

To answer the HerkS question, the Horten IIIe flew in the late summer about 10 times without problem, this was the big Horten I had built. Sadly the tenth flight was also the last, the model crashed and snapped an entire wing in half. The wind had been very unstable that day and what was a headwind turned into a tailwind on short final. End result a spectacular stall at about 10 Meters altitude over the left wing. End of that one.

The MiniManatee is sitting on the shelf, still have not gotten round to doing anything as two other projects (neither of which are Nurflüglers) have priority. A Dymond Sundowner and a Schleicher K8b. I had at one point in time thought about doing a Sperber Junior but shelved it because I could not fathom cutting ribs for the next month. Both of the gliders however are large scale projects, the Sundowner is an ARF and the K8b is a short kit and will not be done until springtime in '13. Of-course these models being conventional in layout I am not going to report on them here.

The MM will at some point get done when get around to it ... something that small is tedious and time consuming and my vision is not the best anymore. Watching some of you build planks ... that has got me interested in something like that as well but first are the big thermal birds which I want done for a vacation I hope to take next year.

Jens

Hi,Jens,sorry to here about the IIIe,fate( and wind) can be cruel at times.
That K8b is a nice project,how about a build in scale sailplanes,watching your projects is always interesting.
The twin pusher motorised version would be something different!
Best regards Stuart

Hi Stuart,

Twin engined?? put two engines on what? No, seriously the K8b is a non powered glider or at least in the 1:1 world. My hope is to put power on it with a folding power assembly which a friend of mine and I have been working on. This way the scale lines can be retained yet the electric updraft is there. I tend to fly largely alone from fields where a tow start is not possible anyway. A bungee start would be the other way but ... I prefer the safety net of the electric updraft just in case I do foul a landing.

At this time I have no plans to do a build thread on the large glider models instead I may do a thread after the model has the maiden on video. My feeling is this way the thread may be more interesting for a reader. There are lots of threads there already anyway and we are not reinventing the wheel. Other than a hideaway power plant there is nothing revolutionary about the K8b build. When the time comes to build another wing (or finish the MM) I will post pictures in the usual manner.

Jens

K 8

Role Sailplane
National origin Germany
Manufacturer Schleicher
Designer Rudolf Kaiser
First flight November 1957
Number built over 1,100


K8 in red/yellow livery (EUGC)
The Schleicher K 8 is a single-seat glider designed by Rudolf Kaiser and built by the Alexander Schleicher company of Germany.
[edit]Design and development

The K 8 was derived from the earlier Ka 6 design as a simple single-place sailplane with dive brakes using construction techniques similar to the Schleicher K 7, simplified for amateur construction from kits. Emphasis was on rugged construction, good climbing ability in thermals and good handling characteristics.
The prototype K 8 made its first flight in November 1957 and over 1,100 were built in three main versions. The original K 8 had a very small canopy. Side windows for improved visibility were introduced in the next version, and the K 8B, by far the most numerous variant, has a larger one-piece blown Plexiglas canopy. The K 8C features a longer nose, larger main wheel located ahead of the center of gravity and deletion of the larger wooden nose skid resulting in a roomier cockpit.
The cantilever high wings are single-spar structures of pine and plywood, with a plywood leading edge torsion box and fabric covering aft of the spar; the forward sweep is 1° 18' and dihedral is 3°. There are Schempp-Hirth air brakes in the upper and lower surfaces and the wooden ailerons are plywood covered. The cantilever tail unit is of similar construction to the wings, with ply-covered fixed surfaces and fabric-covered rudder and elevators, and a trim tab in the elevator is an optional fitting. The fuselage is a welded steel-tube structure, with fabric covering over spruce longerons and a glass fibre nose cone.
There is a non-retractable and unsprung monowheel, with optional brake, and a nose skid mounted on rubber blocks in front of it, plus a steel skid at the tail.
[edit]Operational history

Karl Striedieck of the United States made a 767 km / 476.6 mile ridge flight in a K 8B to establish a world out-and-return record in 1968.
[edit]Motor glider variants

A motor glider conversion of the K 8B was developed by LVD (the Flying Training School of the Detmold Aero Club) similar to their conversion of a Scheibe Bergfalke IV known as the BF IV-BIMO, in which a Lloyd LS-400 piston engine mounted in the fuselage drives a pair of small two-blade pusher propellers rotating within cutouts in each wing near the trailing edge.
Another motorglider conversion was used by "Vestjysk Svæveflyveklub" in Denmark: it had a small Wankel rotary engine mounted in a nacelle on an aluminium stick above the main spar. The engine wase started with a recoil starter like a lawn mower. The high RPM of the device made it extremely unpopular: the propeller tips created a permanent sonic boom, that made the plane extremely noisy. The harassed citizens of Esbjerg nicknamed the plane 'the flying circular saw' and the engine was removed.[citation needed]
[edit]Specifications ( K 8B)



K 8b


K 8 b G-CJOB landing at Camphill
Data from Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1966–67[1]
General characteristics
Crew: One
Length: 7.00 m (23 ft 0 in)
Wingspan: 15.00 m (49 ft 2½ in)
Height: 1.57 m (5 ft 1¾ in)
Wing area: 14.15 m2 (152.3 ft2)
Aspect ratio: 15.9:1
Wing profile: Göttingen 533/532
Empty weight: 195 kg (430 lb)
Gross weight: 310 kg (683 lb) each each
Performance
Maximum speed: 190 km/h (118 mph)
Maximum glide ratio: 27:1
Rate of sink: 0.72 m/s (142 ft/min)
[edit]References

^ Taylor 1966, pp. 393–394.
Taylor, John W. R. Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1966–67. London:Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1966.
Schleicher Web Site
Sailplane directory
[show] v t e
Schleicher glider types
[show] v t e
Lists relating to aviation

Having got the hang of paste/copy on this thing.The previous is from Wiki
Regards Stuart

Interesting is that the twin pusher version was developed in Detmold (Germany) .... I was born there :-). My version if to be powered will have a retractable power plant however, the scale lines are too pretty to fool around with :-)

Jens