The Nugget has a flapped aluminum wing in which the skin is bonded rather than riveted to the structure in an effort to match the wave-free surfaces of fiberglass wing skins. The forward half of the fuselage is fiberglass and the portion aft of the trailing edge is metal. Water ballast is carried in the…
The Nucleon, which first flew in 1954, has a wing bult of Styrofoam around a spar and convered with a fiberglass shell. To save weight, struts were used with cuffs at both ends. It has full span flaps, with drooping ailerons, and a horizontal tail which folds up for trailing.
In the 1930’s, Mitchell assisted Hawley Bowlus on the prototype BA-100 Baby Albatross and in the 1970’s was the designer of the ultralight Mitchell Wing, U-2 and P-38. The Nimbus series represents the other end of the spectrum. The Nimbus III was developed in 1956 from the earlier I and II models. He produced nine…
The Nimbus 4D is the successor to the earlier 24.6 m. Nimbus 3D. The six piece Discus planform wing has full span camber changing flaperons. Approach control is by double segment top surface Schempp-Hirth airbrakes which are interconnected with the inboard sections of the flaps. There is an optional fin ballast tank for trimming purposes.…
The increased span replacement of the single place Open Class Nimbus 3 first flew in 1990. The six piece wing has a multi-stage Discus style leading edge sweepback. When the double panel top surface airbrakes are opened, the flaps lower automatically to the landing position (approximately 40 degrees). There is a fin mounted trim ballast…
The Orlik 2, which first flew in 1938, was a development of the 1937 14.4 m. Orlik 1. A special model (Orlik 3) was developed for the Olympic design competition for the 1940 games (won by the German D.F.S. Meise). It has unusual airbrakes on the wing undersurface, close to the leading edge, from the…
The Osprey, a Standard Class sailplane which made its first flight in 1973, features a retractable gear, 90 degree flaps and a T-tail.
The paper Wing, so called because it used paper webbed ribs, first flew in 1929. Wingspan was later increased to 14.33 m. / 47.0 ft. principally by extending the ailerons. It was first U.S. built sailplane to fly for more than 1 hour. A replica of the Paper Wing belongs to the San Diego (CA)…
The Pik-20 was designed as a 15 m. racing class, all-fiberglass sailplane with water ballast, retractable gear and 90 degrees trailing edge flaps for landing. The B model added flap- aileron interconnection and more water, which could be retrofitted to earlier models. Carbon fiber spars were optional on early B models, but later became standard.…
First flown 1961, the Vasama was designed to the then Standard rules with fixed gear and top and bottom surface airbrakes. It won the 1963 OSTIC prize at the World Championship at Junin, Argentina, and placed third in its class at the contest.