On 7 Sep 2003 06:23:06 -0700, (Jason Armistead)
wrote:

An unusual historical question for the combined genius of the list ...

While visiting Ray Ash at Gulgong on Saturday (to scan some great old
photos of the early days of Southern Cross Gliding Club for our Back
To Camden Week starting 20th September), we were looking through Ray's
early log book.

It's a British Gliding Association one, marked as 3rd Reprint 1949.

On the inside front cover, it lists the Types of Launch as:

C = Catapult
W = Winch
M = Motor car-tow
A = Aero-tow

and

R = Rocket assisted

OK, while I can accept that catapult might be another word for Bungy
launching, I was a bit taken aback by the notion of launching a glider
with a ROCKET ! Ray mentioned he'd never really noticed that before
either.

I wonder if anyone can point me to any solid evidence of rocket
assisted launching of gliders by the British or others.

It sounds like a novel, if somewhat dangerous, way to get airborne in
a sailplane !


From http://www.astronautix.com/articles/blalants.htm

"Automobile manufacturer Fritz von Opel piloted his own rocket glider,
Opel Rak.2, in tests near Frankfurt on 30 September 1928. Its 16
rockets, each producing 50 pounds of thrust, were build by Friedrich
Sander a pyrotechnics specialist. The propulsion system combining
high-thrust, fast-burning powder rockets for initial acceleration with
lower-thrust, slower-burning rockets to sustain velocity.

Opel approached Alexander M. Lippisch, a young designer working at the
Rhon-Rossitten-Gesellschaft, who had already displayed a penchant for
the unorthodox in airplane configuration, with the proposal that he,
too, design a glider for rocket power.

Max Valier and Alexander Sander also succeeded in arousing enthusiasm
for rocket propulsion in a twenty- seven-year-old aircraft designer,
Gottlop Espenlaub. His E 15 tail-less design was of interest as a
rocketplane.

On 11 June, Fritz Stamer effected the first rocket- propelled flight
in Lippish's glider. The glider had been dubbed Ente, or Duck. That
lead later to the Lippish's Komet - the Messerschmitt Me 163, liquid
rocket manned interceptor. "

There's a picture he http://www.ig-scale.at/rak1.html

HTH
Martin

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :