soaring into the future

Brad wrote:
I was browsing thru one of the Yahoo glider N.G.'s today and read
where the World Class design may get ressurected. That got me to
thinking:

What would the ideal recreational next generation sailplane sailplane
look like? I imagine it won't look much different from what we are
seeing now in terms of slender body shapes with sexy wingtip
treatments. And with the price of carbon fiber coming down, the
expanding growth of the composites industry and the rising use and
availability of CNC machining, it seems that there might be a niche
market for a good performing, lightweight sailplane that could be
tailored for the recreational market.

This subject has beaten the dead horse into dog food and baseballs by
now. More Purina than home runs I'm afraid ;-)
Nevertheless...
....We know what *shape* we want, that's pretty easy. What ever *It* is,
it should be shaped similarly to a Discus, LS-8, ASW-24 etc. Some solid
handling, 15 m span, flapless (I like flaps, but a volksglider should be
flapless IMHO), retractable gear, known quantity.
What would make such a beast unique, and affordable, is the way that
shape gets produced.
I suspect the prepreg technique used in the Sparrowhawk is in the right
direction. Farm out fabric cutting to someone who could laser cut many
ships worth of cloth when the price is low? Also, with all the wind
farms going up around the world, the technology involved in
manufacturing big composite wings should be improving rapidly. Perhaps
wings with a significant portion of constant cord/profile (half span?)
with a mass produced, extruded spar that is cut into a segment for each
wing (diverges from the Discus-esque shape but at what performance
cost?) could simplify production.
Posters here have said that a significant amount of the labor that goes
into the manufacture of gliders is in the sanding and polishing to get a
glassy smooth surface. On behalf of all the pilots who've happily flown
30 year old gliders with crappy finishes "Who cares?". If I could get
a solid performing glider with a dull white finish at 2/3 the price,
that's fine with me. Perhaps some decrease in surface waviness is
realized in the process, but modern gliders shrink significantly over
the first few years anyway, negating some of the benefit, so why pay for
sanding twice?

My $ 0.02 (On sale half price tomorrow only!)


Shawn


P.S. Sorry that this is so disjointed, dinner's ready :-)