We are completely aware that turbine power has been added to gliders as far back as 1947. Indeed, Bob Carlton has researched and assembled a fine presentation on the history of jet gliders that he has presented at several SSA Conventions, as well as at Scaled Composites and a number of aviation seminars.
Bob has been flying jet powered gliders on the airshow circuit since 2004 (
www.vertigoairshows.com) and began commercial development of variations as early as 2009 (
www.desertaerospace.com).
The jet Arcus project is simply the latest in a line of developments going back to the Wright brothers' efforts to add a powerplant to a glider.
As far as we know, Dennis Tito's 4,000+ km in the first three flights of this modern glider with a sophisticated turbine from PBS represents a higher level of performance than previous attempts. We fully recognize and applaud earlier applications of turbines to gliders.