Suggestion: wind energy will make gliders cheaper

I remember seeing wood-epoxy wind-turbine blades being built at Gudgeon
Bros. in Bay City, MI in the seventies. Their primary business at the time
was building cold-molded DN iceboats, multihull ocean racers and packaging
and selling WEST System epoxy. Meade Gudgeon said they got the windmill
business because of their demonstrated ability to build long, thin, light
hydrodynamically efficient structures. My guess would be that the windmill
folks learned more from the sailboat and glider folks than the other way
round.

Ray Warshaw
1LK

"Graeme Cant" wrote in message
...
Bill Daniels wrote:

The blades themselves are not useful as glider wings but some parts of
the
manufacturing base that makes them might be adapted to produce wings.

Other way around, perhaps? I "read" (my German is very rudimentary)a
history of Schempp-Hirth a few years ago and saw photos of wind turbine
blades being manufactured some time in the late 50s/early 60s. Does
anybody have any details?

I also understand that a lot of glider wing aerodynamics is actually a
spinoff from research paid for by wind turbine builders. Eppler, for one,
did turbine work I believe. Again, does anyone know any facts?

GC