Gerhard. You should look at the Bob's webpage (www.hpaircraft.com) about the work he's doing on HP
24. I personally know a person wh's self educated in aerodynamics and who's building a modern
version of the Horten 3 (different seating position, different profiles, stiffer construction) and
there's and Australian (or NZ?) group of people who are building a short-tailed glider. All of them
are amateurs and afaik, none of them is learned aerodynamics in school.

About the Performance World Class. If the outer shape of the glider is defined precisely enough,
anyone can build a copy without aerodynamical analysis - only construction has to be engineered.


Regards,
Kaido



"Gerhard Wesp" wrote in message ...
Bob Kuykendall wrote:
Eric, you know I disagree that these are huge expenses. I continue to
believe that with modern softwares, and using modern
commercially-available composite products, that sailplane development
is within the grasp of a conscientious amateur.

I disagree. IMHO, sailplane development is an extremely complex task
far out of reach of anybody without some very sound aeronautical
engineering education. And not only that, it also requires a good deal
of experience---read: your first design will not necessarily be the best
one. :-)

That said, I'm open to be proven wrong by counter-examples. Anybody
knows any?

Cheers
-Gerhard