Short Wings Gliders

when the chinese start building them
they will sell like candies!!!

No......let's make them in the U.S.

Get this economy going again, even tho it would represent a drop in
the bucket.

I subscribe to a few Composites trade magazines and it is amazing the
progress that is being made in the U.S. composites industry. This
country is a leader in composites technology.

Once you realize you're not going to get rich building gliders, but in
doing so you provide a product that can be purchased by economically
similar folks, it's a good thing.

Brad

Why not just make a one design, mass produced 15m glider (preferably with
optional plug in 18m tips). Needn't be all that much more expensive and
would actually give some performance, so people would buy them as long as
they looked like a sailplane.

The problem with the PW5 is that people are embarrased to fly something
that looks like a baby buggy with wings and a tailplane attached.

There is no substitute for span (TINFOS)...!

Derek Copeland

At 16:38 28 January 2009, Brad wrote:

when the chinese start building them
they will sell like candies!!!

No......let's make them in the U.S.

Get this economy going again, even tho it would represent a drop in
the bucket.

I subscribe to a few Composites trade magazines and it is amazing the
progress that is being made in the U.S. composites industry. This
country is a leader in composites technology.

Once you realize you're not going to get rich building gliders, but in
doing so you provide a product that can be purchased by economically
similar folks, it's a good thing.

Brad

There is no substitute for span (TINFOS)...!


There is no substitute for getting your acronyms correct (TINSFGYAC)

On Jan 28, 9:43*am, Pat Russell wrote:
There is no substitute for span (TINFOS)...!

There is no substitute for getting your acronyms correct (TINSFGYAC)

how about TISNFOSIYCAI

Brad

At 17:43 28 January 2009, Pat Russell wrote:

There is no substitute for span (TINFOS)...!


There is no substitute for getting your acronyms correct (TINSFGYAC)


There Is No Substitute FOr Span = TINSFOS.

Sorry missed the S out!

Derek C

On Jan 28, 9:30*am, Derek Copeland wrote:

Why not just make a one design, mass produced 15m glider (preferably with
optional plug in 18m tips)...

Root bending moment scales something like exponentially with span,
regardless of whether the span is part of the orignial wing or added
later. So if you want to add 3m of span, you'd better design the wing
structure for it from the get-go.

We've already seen that even in what passes for mass production in the
glider world that the per-unit cost and price of a 15m ship are great
enough to severely limit the potential market, driving down production
rates and driving up per-unit costs. This is driven to some degree by
the complexity of the aircraft and the materials that go into it. It
is driven by a greater degree by the cost of the tooling, the amount
of floor space and volume it occupies, and by business expenses
relating to maintaining, heating, and lighting commensurate shop
space, and by wages and other labor costs. Big gliders require big
tools, and big tools require big shops, and the bigness seems to scale
with something like the square or the cube of the span.

The only thing I'm bringing to the party with my own 15m/18m design is
to keep overhead down to the barest of minimums and to offload a bunch
of the more labor intensive tasks of assembly, fitting, and finishing
to individual kit builders. The RV series of homebuilt airplanes
suggests that there is a great deal of manufacturing capacity
available in that market.

My interest in smaller gliders is chiefly in that they would fit into
smaller shops and smaller garages, opening up more potential market
for kit sailplanes. I also think that the potential kit market might
be more receptive to simplifications such as 90-degree landing flaps
instead of airbrakes as we saw with the Schreder HP kits and the
Monerai.

Thanks, Bob K.

On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:01:58 -0800 (PST), Bob Kuykendall
wrote:

On Jan 28, 9:30*am, Derek Copeland wrote:

Why not just make a one design, mass produced 15m glider (preferably with
optional plug in 18m tips)...

Root bending moment scales something like exponentially with span,
regardless of whether the span is part of the orignial wing or added
later. So if you want to add 3m of span, you'd better design the wing
structure for it from the get-go.

We've already seen that even in what passes for mass production in the
glider world that the per-unit cost and price of a 15m ship are great
enough to severely limit the potential market, driving down production
rates and driving up per-unit costs. This is driven to some degree by
the complexity of the aircraft and the materials that go into it. It
is driven by a greater degree by the cost of the tooling, the amount
of floor space and volume it occupies, and by business expenses
relating to maintaining, heating, and lighting commensurate shop
space, and by wages and other labor costs. Big gliders require big
tools, and big tools require big shops, and the bigness seems to scale
with something like the square or the cube of the span.

The only thing I'm bringing to the party with my own 15m/18m design is
to keep overhead down to the barest of minimums and to offload a bunch
of the more labor intensive tasks of assembly, fitting, and finishing
to individual kit builders. The RV series of homebuilt airplanes
suggests that there is a great deal of manufacturing capacity
available in that market.

My interest in smaller gliders is chiefly in that they would fit into
smaller shops and smaller garages, opening up more potential market
for kit sailplanes. I also think that the potential kit market might
be more receptive to simplifications such as 90-degree landing flaps
instead of airbrakes as we saw with the Schreder HP kits and the
Monerai.

Thanks, Bob K.

Maybe Van's should do a 1-26 style kit!

Bob M.

At 18:01 28 January 2009, Bob Kuykendall wrote:
On Jan 28, 9:30=A0am, Derek Copeland wrote:

Why not just make a one design, mass produced 15m glider (preferably
with
optional plug in 18m tips)...

Root bending moment scales something like exponentially with span,
regardless of whether the span is part of the orignial wing or added
later. So if you want to add 3m of span, you'd better design the wing
structure for it from the get-go.

We've already seen that even in what passes for mass production in the
glider world that the per-unit cost and price of a 15m ship are great
enough to severely limit the potential market, driving down production
rates and driving up per-unit costs. This is driven to some degree by
the complexity of the aircraft and the materials that go into it. It
is driven by a greater degree by the cost of the tooling, the amount
of floor space and volume it occupies, and by business expenses
relating to maintaining, heating, and lighting commensurate shop
space, and by wages and other labor costs. Big gliders require big
tools, and big tools require big shops, and the bigness seems to scale
with something like the square or the cube of the span.

The only thing I'm bringing to the party with my own 15m/18m design is
to keep overhead down to the barest of minimums and to offload a bunch
of the more labor intensive tasks of assembly, fitting, and finishing
to individual kit builders. The RV series of homebuilt airplanes
suggests that there is a great deal of manufacturing capacity
available in that market.

My interest in smaller gliders is chiefly in that they would fit into
smaller shops and smaller garages, opening up more potential market
for kit sailplanes. I also think that the potential kit market might
be more receptive to simplifications such as 90-degree landing flaps
instead of airbrakes as we saw with the Schreder HP kits and the
Monerai.

Thanks, Bob K.


The Silent 2 Targa is a fine flying machine and the kit is very straight
forward. I built mine in just under one year. However, the Euro/Dollar
rate is a killer!

Mike

Bob

A comment.

Have you thought about some simple tooling a kit buyer could rent for
putting togther critical assemblies (wing to fusrelage, tail asembly,
etc.).

If you furnished the tooling then you would have comfort the kit was
assembled as you deisgned and tested It.

There are of course those who will build the tooling from your plans
because they are on the minimum dollar schedule.

Good luck. Will be nice to have somethig made in America vs ??????

We can use all the jobs and keep the $ home.

Big John






On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:01:58 -0800 (PST), Bob Kuykendall
wrote:

On Jan 28, 9:30*am, Derek Copeland wrote:

Why not just make a one design, mass produced 15m glider (preferably with
optional plug in 18m tips)...

Root bending moment scales something like exponentially with span,
regardless of whether the span is part of the orignial wing or added
later. So if you want to add 3m of span, you'd better design the wing
structure for it from the get-go.

We've already seen that even in what passes for mass production in the
glider world that the per-unit cost and price of a 15m ship are great
enough to severely limit the potential market, driving down production
rates and driving up per-unit costs. This is driven to some degree by
the complexity of the aircraft and the materials that go into it. It
is driven by a greater degree by the cost of the tooling, the amount
of floor space and volume it occupies, and by business expenses
relating to maintaining, heating, and lighting commensurate shop
space, and by wages and other labor costs. Big gliders require big
tools, and big tools require big shops, and the bigness seems to scale
with something like the square or the cube of the span.

The only thing I'm bringing to the party with my own 15m/18m design is
to keep overhead down to the barest of minimums and to offload a bunch
of the more labor intensive tasks of assembly, fitting, and finishing
to individual kit builders. The RV series of homebuilt airplanes
suggests that there is a great deal of manufacturing capacity
available in that market.

My interest in smaller gliders is chiefly in that they would fit into
smaller shops and smaller garages, opening up more potential market
for kit sailplanes. I also think that the potential kit market might
be more receptive to simplifications such as 90-degree landing flaps
instead of airbrakes as we saw with the Schreder HP kits and the
Monerai.

Thanks, Bob K.

First off I still am relatively new to saoring, and probably won't be
competeing in any organized contests in 2009, but reading all the
recent post regarding competitions has me interested.

I think we really do need a place for people who do not have the
latest and greatest carbon ship to compete. I think the idea for the
sports class is good, BUT there is no decent way I can compete in my
Ka-6 with someone in a Ventus 2. My fear is that creating a 13.5m
class will leave a lot of older gliders (read affordable) out in the
cold. Maybe splitting Sports (or at least scoring it as 2 groups)
would allow us to have more people compete in older gliders.

Pete