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Zaunkoenig

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Tom Nalevanko

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2007
Messages
1,342
Location
Alpine, WY
Am back from a week's vacation in Alaska where I took the family on a float plane trip to see bears. No bears, but the flight was a fun way to blow through $1K+ anyway and get some insights into that type of flying! A lot better than equivalent purchases by my wife and daughter at "the spa". lol

A few months ago, as part of the research efforts for my design project, I became interested in the Zaunkoenig. In essence it may be the first LSA, conceived during and built by students during WWII. You can find articles about it in the Sport Aviation archives, written by British authors as the two remaining examples of the plane ended up there after the war. In these articles, I found mention of a book written by the plane's designer, Dr. Hermann Winter. After a lot of looking and blind faith putting $55 in an envelope and sending it off to Germany and a 6 week wait (feeling that I was a chump for doing so), the book arrived and I read it on my vacation.

The book is titled, Segelflug und Langsamflug (Sailplane Flight and Slow Flight) and is very interesting. Lots of data and photos... It is written in a very philosophical style so I have to go back and read over a few sections, particularly concerning the crashes where it is particularly obtuse. A lot of applicability to several of the threads on this site. Short resume: Dr. Winter was trained to fly during WWI and became a design engineer. Prior to WWII he led the fabrication activities for the Fiesler Storch. He had somewhat of a pacificist bent and left industry and went into education at Technischen Hochschule Branschweig where he designed and developed and had built the Zaunkoenig. He did the test flying himself and only crashed once. His research was largely on slow flight and the approach was very professional. As can be expected, the story from the horse's mouth is a bit different than all the later interpretations.

I'll be adding some data, pictures, conclusions here later but ask questions away to give me an indicator of interest.
 

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