tilopa
Well-Known Member
Having lost sight of my desire to experience soaring, after a house renovation that ended up taking too long and consuming all my money, and diddling around with airplane designs that I realize I'm never going to build, I was reminded that sailplane flying could likely be the most fun I've had in an airplane, and revitalize my interest in flying, and also my interest in building an airplane, to a small (but perhaps rewarding) degree. The flying part I just have to go an do, and hopefully next weekend I'll start again.
The building part would be to add a small engine/prop to a sailplane, this idea Autoreply gave me, which others have done. It seems like such a good idea because (in my opinion) sailplanes give a lot of bang for the buck in terms of quality of build. Rather than being designed around a big heavy engine at the nose, sailplanes (particularly glass) are designed with aerodynamic efficiency in mind, and just overall seem like they are designed and built well, from an engineering standpoint, for the money they cost. Like, I saw for sale today a Libelle 201 in good condition and in annual for $15,000 US. Anyway, it seems like a fun and rewarding project (which is in the realm of doable for me) to take such a plane and fit a small engine behind the wing. Not as a replacement to soaring but as another plane for a different mission.
Then I starting thinking if it is possible to combine the two into one plane, meaning have a plane that can soar but with a motor for powered flight at other times. I know there are self-launchers but assumed the motor is just for take-off and then gets stowed away, and I've seen "motorized gliders" but they look like regular airplanes and probably don't soar very well. Looking up the definition of motorglider this is what wikipedia says:
"The FAI Gliding Commission Sporting Code definition is: a fixed-wing aerodyne equipped with a means of propulsion (MoP), capable of sustained soaring flight without thrust from the means of propulsion."
So, I'm wondering if there is a type of production sailplane that would accommodate a small engine and prop (non-retractable) that would allow "good" soaring but also could sustain powered flight at other times? Sorry for all the long-winded preamble, I could have just simply asked the question... but I'm admittedly a bit giddy about the idea. :ban:
The building part would be to add a small engine/prop to a sailplane, this idea Autoreply gave me, which others have done. It seems like such a good idea because (in my opinion) sailplanes give a lot of bang for the buck in terms of quality of build. Rather than being designed around a big heavy engine at the nose, sailplanes (particularly glass) are designed with aerodynamic efficiency in mind, and just overall seem like they are designed and built well, from an engineering standpoint, for the money they cost. Like, I saw for sale today a Libelle 201 in good condition and in annual for $15,000 US. Anyway, it seems like a fun and rewarding project (which is in the realm of doable for me) to take such a plane and fit a small engine behind the wing. Not as a replacement to soaring but as another plane for a different mission.
Then I starting thinking if it is possible to combine the two into one plane, meaning have a plane that can soar but with a motor for powered flight at other times. I know there are self-launchers but assumed the motor is just for take-off and then gets stowed away, and I've seen "motorized gliders" but they look like regular airplanes and probably don't soar very well. Looking up the definition of motorglider this is what wikipedia says:
"The FAI Gliding Commission Sporting Code definition is: a fixed-wing aerodyne equipped with a means of propulsion (MoP), capable of sustained soaring flight without thrust from the means of propulsion."
So, I'm wondering if there is a type of production sailplane that would accommodate a small engine and prop (non-retractable) that would allow "good" soaring but also could sustain powered flight at other times? Sorry for all the long-winded preamble, I could have just simply asked the question... but I'm admittedly a bit giddy about the idea. :ban:
