On Tue, 22 Mar 2016 19:06:27 +0000, Ommadawn wrote:

First flight was a 4 minute hop, as I didnt manage any lift. Second
launch saw me at cloudbase, 5300' within 12 minutes. I logged 2hrs 31 on
this flight and was exceeding glad and joyous! Choirs of angels sang. I
was applauded by passing eagles. I can see we are going to have a long
and fruitful relationship.

Great! I'm pleased you had such a good flight and are enjoying your
Libelle.

Are you aware of anybody who has fitted canopy hinges to their 201?
I'm going through the mental exercise of trying to figure out a safe
method of rear hinges that allow a robust attachment, whilst still
engaging the locating pins.

The only ones I know of for sure was the Will Schueman modified Open
Libelle, and another H.301 in the UK which has a Schuemanised nose and
cockpit. As the fuselages and wing mounts of the H.201 and H.301 are
apparently near as dammit identical (I still haven't seen an H.301
outside of a photograph), presumably what works on an H.301 would also be
OK for an H.201.

WS extended the top of the fuselage forward to a little in front of the
wing LE. Probably this was as much so he could build decent wing fairings
onto the fuselage as anything, but it also meant that he halved the
length of the canopy. He hinged the new short canopy so it opened back on
top of the extended fuselage top. I think that halving the canopy's
length is about all you can do, though the resulting canopy could be
hinged at either end or even made to open sideways, but you'd still
probably need to extend the fuselage top forward to the read of the new
canopy and mating it to the wings would be hard because they currently
extend inwards far enough to let the canopy seal onto the wing's top
surfaces. Fixing that would, I think, need the new fuselage top to extend
down inside the wing roots so it wasn't impossibly fragile and then
adding root fairings would be a good idea, if only to make the result
look like a proper, well-thought-out job. I don't know what WS did there
because I've never seen drawings or photos of his modified H.301 with the
wings off (are there any?).

Another disadvantage is that his rearward view must be poor compared with
a standard Libelle - IMO any glider in which I can't see the tailplane
tips has poor rear vision while the Libelle is excellent in this respect:
I can just see my rudder waggle when I'm strapped in.

Hinging the existing canopy sideways wouldn't work at all because cockpit
rail-mounted hinges are so far below the wing's top surface that the
canopy would be prevented from opening at all and hinging it at front or
rear would leave such a long canopy to support that any attempt at
getting in or out without external help would either leave you trapped or
with a smashed canopy.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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