HP14

I owned a HP-14 for 15 years, and got many hundreds of hours of flying in it, including a bunch of XC flying. Sold it because it was damaged (while tied down on the ground, something else hit it) and I didn't want the rebuilding project. Despite roughness in the finish due to age, the glide slope (at lowish speeds) was great, thanks to the span. With a bit of positive flaps it could work the weakest lift. And with plenty of flaps the short field landing ability was great.

But, with my weak back, I personally found the rigging difficult, even after building a device for manipulating the roots. I usually kept it rigged all season. The prospect of a difficult rigging, plus the condition of the aging trailer, made my XC flying rather conservative to avoid landouts. Thus I ended up flying more XC after I switched to a glider with less performance but much easier rigging (Russia AC4).

I should also mention that, despite having adequate tail surfaces etc, the thing never "flew itself", it was hands-on all the time, perhaps due to the mixing of rudder and elevator inputs into the V-tail. And the aileron control forces were a lot heavier than the tail, and roll rate slow. Nothing difficult in the handling, but not quite the friendliness of many glass ships of later design. If you have a strong back, and can get a good trailer for it, then it would be fine.

Don't know if I should jump in here or not, but I remember a fatal Austria accident where the pilot was attempting a full slip to landing. Probably holding full aileron and opposite rudder as necessary to line up with runway. As the V tailed Austria crossed the fence, it suddenly pitched down hard and the pilot was killed. There was some discussion about a sudden application of full rudder (one ruddervator up, other ruddervator down) may have stalled the up member, resulting in full down input from the remaining ruddervator.
Something to think about if flying a V tailed bird,
JJ

On Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 12:29:04 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Don't know if I should jump in here or not, but I remember a fatal Austria accident where the pilot was attempting a full slip to landing. Probably holding full aileron and opposite rudder as necessary to line up with runway. As the V tailed Austria crossed the fence, it suddenly pitched down hard and the pilot was killed. There was some discussion about a sudden application of full rudder (one ruddervator up, other ruddervator down) may have stalled the up member, resulting in full down input from the remaining ruddervator.
Something to think about if flying a V tailed bird,
JJ

The Austria SH-1 POH/FM cautions not to do a full slip since the wing turbulence can mask the entire tail. I did it - once - at 5,000'; in full slip, the elevator and rudder went limp and wagging the stick did nothing. Cycling the dive brakes did nothing. About 1,500' later, it spontaneously decided to fly again, as I was preparing to 'step out'. This was quite near max aft allowable C of G (but within limits). I never did a full slip again, and was happy I'd waited until I had a lot of air under me to do this test (flying from a winch-only site). I read POH's with a lot more attention before flying new types. A half-control slip with full top-and-bottom dive brakes in the Austria gives pretty good descent rate. I loved flying the Austria, within the limits the book gave.

On Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 10:29:04 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Don't know if I should jump in here or not, but I remember a fatal Austria accident where the pilot was attempting a full slip to landing. Probably holding full aileron and opposite rudder as necessary to line up with runway. As the V tailed Austria crossed the fence, it suddenly pitched down hard and the pilot was killed. There was some discussion about a sudden application of full rudder (one ruddervator up, other ruddervator down) may have stalled the up member, resulting in full down input from the remaining ruddervator.
Something to think about if flying a V tailed bird,
JJ

A Schreder HP or RS has 90 deg flaps which pretty much precludes the need to side slip the sailplane - around 3-1 glide angle with full flaps. Once I got the flap/aileron mixer where I liked it on my RS-15, I really looked forward to landings. It was great fun!

Mike

Yup, I called it the "glass elevator", since the pitch attitude - and glide path - was quite nose-low on final with lots of flaps. You may still need a slip if landing in a crosswind. Although with those long wings you don't want to slip too close to the ground...

Regarding the "ruddervator stall" theory mentioned above, it does not make sense, since "over the fence" the amount of rudder input would be reduced, not increased. Unless that Austria pilot was switching from crab to slip at that point? The Austria may have some problem with full "rudder", but havn't heard such in the V-tail HP-14. What I did notice is that if you needed much elevator input (e.g., flaring to land, or zooming into a thermal) you couldn't have full rudder at the same time, since the two controls are mixed. Not a big problem though, just means some maneuvers take a bit more time.

On Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 9:40:46 PM UTC+3, Dan Daly wrote:
On Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 12:29:04 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Don't know if I should jump in here or not, but I remember a fatal Austria accident where the pilot was attempting a full slip to landing. Probably holding full aileron and opposite rudder as necessary to line up with runway. As the V tailed Austria crossed the fence, it suddenly pitched down hard and the pilot was killed. There was some discussion about a sudden application of full rudder (one ruddervator up, other ruddervator down) may have stalled the up member, resulting in full down input from the remaining ruddervator.
Something to think about if flying a V tailed bird,
JJ

The Austria SH-1 POH/FM cautions not to do a full slip since the wing turbulence can mask the entire tail. I did it - once - at 5,000'; in full slip, the elevator and rudder went limp and wagging the stick did nothing. Cycling the dive brakes did nothing. About 1,500' later, it spontaneously decided to fly again

I found that the original Janus did something similar in a full-on slip. Elevator and rudder both stopped doing anything. However the result was that the nose slowly pitched down and it accelerated out of it.

Not something you'd want on short final.

But it was only on a really aggressive slip, with a bit of momentum in the yawing. I don't know if you'd get there with gradual application.

On 25/01/2017 19:29, wrote:

Don't know if I should jump in here or not, but I remember a fatal
Austria accident where the pilot was attempting a full slip to
landing. Probably holding full aileron and opposite rudder as
necessary to line up with runway. As the V tailed Austria crossed the
fence, it suddenly pitched down hard and the pilot was killed. There
was some discussion about a sudden application of full rudder (one
ruddervator up, other ruddervator down) may have stalled the up
member, resulting in full down input from the remaining ruddervator.
Something to think about if flying a V tailed bird, JJ

Off topic for an HP14 thread, but I once owned a share 15m Austria SH.
You could definitely stall the V-tail with one movement (rudder or
elevator) and effectively loose all control of the other. BUT this only
happened at low speeds - well below the wing stalling speed.

It manifested itself with a few quirks. During the landing or take off
roll, if you used just enough forward elevator to lift the tail, you had
full rudder control. Any other elevator position would compromise rudder
authority. In a few other low airspeed situations, like spin recovery,
or at the top of a loop where the wings were "flying with zero G's", you
could induce V-tail quirks. But for normal flying it was no different to
flying a conventional glider.

I had no trouble with side slips but I was careful to keep the CG
position well within the handbook range. There was also a mod to the
Handbook which reduced the allowable CG range. The V-tail mounting
structure was also subject to glue joint failure, with mandatory mods. I
checked it very carefully before each flight. Also the V-tail
attachment. If one V-tail was not positively locked during rigging, the
results were ugly...