Sonja Englert Engineering

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Jay Kempf

Jay Kempf

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Met her at Oshkosh a few years back. Found out she does test flying for a customer of mine as well. Very, very knowledgeable engineer. Very, very broad experience. Her personal aircraft is as close to anything I would do as you can get. She flies it all over the country to consulting customers, shows, and anything else.
 
mcrae0104

mcrae0104

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She gave a forum talk on her Caro 1 motorglider a few years back at Oshkosh. I recall that she had done some interesting work on reducing cooling drag on it.
 
Jay Kempf

Jay Kempf

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How she built it is the real story. Basically built it like you do sand castings. Dumped a truckload of pool sand in the yard and pounded aircraft shapes in it and then did a wet layup right in the hole on plastic sheets. I didn't get to see the airplane but I have heard that it isn't a show plane but hits its numbers regardless of how much filling and sanding there was and it gets flown and flown.

I thought the wing structure was a bit complex from the pictures I saw.

She is a very unique individual. Fascinating history.
 
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plncraze

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Her history is incredible! Bilingual at the least. Her books are informative from the perspective of someone who has not designed or built anything from them. Find pictures of the Mooney wing she designed.
 
Topaz

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I met Sonja at the 2018 ESA Western Workshop, where she gave a presentation on the design and build of her Caro 1 motorglider. She had the aircraft there as well. Her talk includes all the details on the build method, molding, etc.

Here's the presentation:
 
Victor Bravo

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Topaz beat me to it, Ms. Englert is apparently the "real deal". I think BoKu is an acquaintance or associate of hers on some level, and can probably vouch for her capabilities better than anyone else here. She built a one-off high performance motorglider with half of the time and sandpaper that anyone else could have. My understanding is that the glider is not as smooth as a factory build German competition ship, but it was also not supposed to be. She did it herself on a far lower time/money budget.
 
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rdj

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BJC said:
Anyone familiar with Sonja / Sonja Englert Engineering? Lots of information on her web site: Flight Test | Sonja Englert Engineering

Links to two tutorial videos here:

News | Mysite

www.caro-engineering.com www.caro-engineering.com

BJC
Click to expand...
As an infamous hoarder of aircraft design and construction books I naturally purchased all of the design and construction books on her site. They're self-published but very well done with lots of illustrations, and most importantly appear to be full of accurate and useful information. Her "Homebuilt Aerodynamics and Flight Testing" is the only flight test book I've run across that also covers flight-testing sailplanes. Her "Composite Facts" book goes over her inexpensive "cast it in a huge sand mold" technique (among numerous other topics). Her biography is on the final page of her book: born in Germany, interned in high school in a glider factory, aeronautical engineering degree, eventually ending up on the Adam A500 project and the Columbia 400. Now consults. Definitely seems to know her stuff.
 
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