As I sadly recall, over-engineering means adding unnecessary
complexity; adding unnecessary material is over-building.

Ian



At 11:36 05 November 2004, Mike Hessington wrote:
Clint,

You are confused.

I have visited the LAK factory. As a result of this
visit I can't agree with you views on 'over engineering'
of LAKs.

The LAK 17/19 is under engineered. The spars appear
flimsy and the cockpit has no real protection at all.
In fact, one of them broke up at low level during
a test flight and just about killed the pilot.

If I had to crash a glider I would want to be sitting
in an ASW27 or 28.

The Germans calculate, design and test in order to
get things right. Over engineering is fine if you
are building tanks, not gliders.

Mike
X01



At 07:42 04 November 2004, wrote:
I have had a couple of very heavy landings/groundloops
in my LAK 12
('12). Comments after the first one, which involved
a tree and resulted
in lots of paperwork, is that no German glider would
have survived with
no damage. Thank goodness for Eastern Block over-engineering.
Clinton Birch
LAK 12