1.
Glider (sailplane)
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A sailplane or glider is a type of glider aircraft used in the sport of gliding. Sailplanes are aerodynamically streamlined and are capable of soaring in rising air, sailplanes benefit from producing the least drag for any given amount of lift, and this is best achieved with long, thin wings, a fully faired narrow cockpit and a slender fuselage. Aircraft with these features are able to climb efficiently in rising air produced by thermals or hills, sailplanes can glide long distances at high speed with a minimum loss of height in between. Gliders have rigid wings and either skids or undercarriage, in contrast hang gliders and paragliders use the pilots feet for the start of the launch and for the landing. These latter types are described in articles, though their differences from sailplanes are covered below. Gliders are usually launched by winch or aerotow, though other methods, auto tow, all sailplanes soar, but some gliders do not soar and are simply engineless aircraft towed by another aircraft to a desired destination and then cast off for landing. Military gliders are only, and are abandoned after landing, having served their purpose. Motor gliders are gliders with engines which can be used for extending a flight and even, in some cases, Some high-performance motor gliders may have an engine-driven retractable propeller which can be used to sustain flight. Other motor gliders have enough thrust to launch themselves before the engine is retracted and are known as self-launching gliders, another type is the self-launching touring motor glider, where the pilot can switch the engine on and off in flight without retracting their propellers. Sir George Cayleys gliders achieved brief wing-borne hops from around 1849, in the 1890s Otto Lilienthal built gliders using weight shift for control. In the early 1900s the Wright Brothers built gliders using movable surfaces for control, in 1903 they successfully added an engine. After World War I gliders were built for sporting purposes in Germany, the sporting use of gliders rapidly evolved in the 1930s and is now their main application. As their performance improved, gliders began to be used for cross-country flying, in 1930, pilot Frank Hawks flew the Texaco Eaglet with tow plane from San Diego to New York over eight days, helping to popularize the activity in the United States. Early gliders had no cockpit and the pilot sat on a seat located just ahead of the wing. These were known as gliders and they were usually launched from the tops of hills. To enable gliders to soar more effectively than primary gliders, the designs minimized drag, gliders now have very smooth, narrow fuselages and very long, narrow wings with a high aspect ratio and winglets. The early gliders were mainly of wood with metal fastenings, stays. Later fuselages made of fabric-covered steel tube were married to wood and fabric wings for lightness, New materials such as carbon-fiber, fiber glass and Kevlar have since been used with computer-aided design to increase performance
2.
Wingtip device
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Wingtip devices are intended to improve the efficiency of fixed-wing aircraft. Wingtip devices can also improve aircraft handling characteristics and enhance safety for following aircraft, such devices increase the effective aspect ratio of a wing without materially increasing the wingspan. An extension of span would lower lift-induced drag, but would increase parasitic drag and would require boosting the strength, at some point, there is no net benefit from further increased span. There may also be operational considerations that limit the allowable wingspan, wingtip devices increase the lift generated at the wingtip and reduce the lift-induced drag caused by wingtip vortices, improving lift-to-drag ratio. This increases fuel efficiency in powered aircraft and increases cross-country speed in gliders, U. S. Air Force studies indicate that a given improvement in fuel efficiency correlates directly with the causal increase in the aircrafts lift-to-drag ratio. The initial concept dates back to 1897, when English engineer Frederick W. Lanchester patented wing end-plates as a method for controlling wingtip vortices, in the United States, Scottish-born engineer William E. Somerville patented the first functional winglets in 1910. Somerville installed the devices on his biplane and monoplane designs. Vincent Burnelli received US Patent no,1,774,474 for his Airfoil Control Means on August 26,1930. This was done in order to counteract the dutch roll characteristic the marked three degrees of angle for each wing panel that the original He 162 designs wings possessed. Following the end of World War II, Dr. Sighard F. Drooped wingtips are often called Hoerner tips in his honor, gliders and light aircraft have made use of Hoerner tips for many years. The term winglet was previously used to describe an additional lifting surface on an aircraft, richard Whitcombs research in the 1970s at NASA first used winglet with its modern meaning referring to near-vertical extension of the wing tips. The upward angle of the winglet, its inward or outward angle, as well as its size, the winglet converts some of the otherwise-wasted energy in the wingtip vortex to an apparent thrust. This small contribution can be worthwhile over the lifetime, provided the benefit offsets the cost of installing and maintaining the winglets. Another potential benefit of winglets is that they reduce the intensity of wingtip vortices, minimum spacing requirements between aircraft operations at airports is largely dictated by these factors. Aircraft are classified by weight because the vortex strength grows with the lift coefficient, and thus. The drag reduction permitted by winglets can also reduce the takeoff distance. Wingtip vortices create turbulence, originating at the edge of the wingtip and propagating backwards. This turbulence delaminates the airflow over a triangular section of the outboard wing
3.
Wankel engine
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The Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into rotating motion. The engine is referred to as a rotary engine, although this name applies also to other completely different designs. All parts rotate moving in one direction, as opposed to the reciprocating piston engine which has pistons violently changing direction. The design was conceived by German engineer Felix Wankel, Wankel received his first patent for the engine in 1929. He began development in the early 1950s at NSU, and completed a prototype in 1957. NSU subsequently licensed the design to companies around the world, who have continually added improvements, the engines produced are of spark ignition, with compression ignition engines only in research projects. The Wankel engine has the advantages of compact design and low weight over the most commonly used internal combustion engine employing reciprocating pistons, the point of power to weight has been reached of under one pound weight per horsepower output. In 1951, NSU Motorenwerke AG in Germany began development of the engine, the first, the DKM motor, was developed by Felix Wankel. The second, the KKM motor, developed by Hanns Dieter Paschke, was adopted as the basis of the modern Wankel engine, so the Wankel engine design used today was not designed by Felix Wankel, and the Paschke engine could be a more apt title. The basis of the DKM type of motor was that both the rotor and the housing spun around on separate axes, the DKM motor reached higher revolutions per minute and was more naturally balanced. However, the engine needed to be stripped to change the spark plugs, the KKM engine was simpler, having a fixed housing. The first working prototype, DKM54, produced 21 hp and ran on February 1,1957, at the NSU research and development department Versuchsabteilung TX. The KKM57 was constructed by NSU engineer Hanns Dieter Paschke in 1957 without the knowledge of Felix Wankel, in 1960, NSU, the firm that employed the two inventors, and the US firm Curtiss-Wright, signed a joint agreement. Curtiss-Wright recruited Max Bentele to head their design team, many manufacturers signed license agreements for development, attracted by the smoothness, quiet running, and reliability emanating from the uncomplicated design. Amongst them were Alfa Romeo, American Motors, Citroen, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, Suzuki, in the United States in 1959, under license from NSU, Curtiss-Wright pioneered improvements in the basic engine design. In Britain, in the 1960s, Rolls Royces Motor Car Division pioneered a two-stage diesel version of the Wankel engine, Citroën did much research, producing the M35, GS Birotor and RE-2 Helicopter using engines produced by Comotor, a joint venture of Citroën and NSU. General Motors seemed to have concluded the Wankel engine was more expensive to build than an equivalent reciprocating engine. General Motors claimed to have solved the fuel issue
4.
Schleicher ASK 14
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The Schleicher ASK14 is a West German low-wing, single-seat motor glider that was designed by Rudolf Kaiser and produced by Alexander Schleicher GmbH & Co. The aircraft is referred to as the Schleicher AS-K14 or the Schleicher ASK-14, the AS for Alexander Schleicher. The US Federal Aviation Administration designates the aircraft as the Schleicher ASW-14, while Transport Canada, the ASK14 was developed as a low-wing motorized version of the Schleicher Ka 6E. The powerplant is a 19 kW Hirth F10 K19 four-cylinder, two-stroke engine, made by Hirth, the aircraft is built from wood and covered with doped aircraft fabric covering. The 14.4 m span wing employs a NACA 63-618 airfoil at the wing root transitioning to a NACA 63-615 section at the wing tip, the monowheel landing gear is retractable. The cockpit is covered by a canopy that gives all-around visibility. Due to its Ka 6E heritage the handling of the ASK14 was described by Soaring Magazine in 1983 as superb, the ASK14 was never type certified and aircraft registered in the United States were in the Experimental - Racing/Exhibition category. ASW 14s in Canada are in the category CAR Standard 507.03 Aircraft Held a Flight Permit - Private Aircraft prior 01/89 and those in the UK have an EASA Certificate of Airworthiness. ASK 14s finished second, third and fourth in the class at the first international motorglider competition. In 1971 former Soaring Magazine editor Bennett Rogers set the first United States motorgliding record in an ASK14, flying 330.5 km out-and-return from Rosamond, California, US. In July 2011 there were still eight ASK 14s registered with the FAA in the US, two with the UK Civil Aviation Authority and one registered with Transport Canada
5.
Schleicher ASW 20
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The ASW20 is an FAI15 metre Class glider designed by Gerhard Waibel and built by Alexander Schleicher GmbH & Co. Its fuselage is nearly identical to the ASW19s, mated to newly designed wings for the 15 metre Class, the prototype first flew in 1977. It proved to be a successful glider, winning several World Championships. Developments along its production life included winglets, pneumatic turbulators, and it remained in production until 1990, when it was superseded by the ASW27. 765 were built by Schleicher and a further 140 were made under license by Centrair in France, the ASW20 first flew in 1977 and was an instant success, winning numerous world and national championships. Dick Johnson reported that the ASW20 was the first 15 m glider to demonstrate a measured a L/D in excess of 40/1. Roy McMaster, Karl Striedieck and John Seymour won jointly, with others, aSW20s won 2nd and 3rd places in the FAI15 metre Class at the 1983 World Championships at Hobbs, NM. ASW20s are still flown in FAI15 metre Class at Regional and National levels, the ASW20 is constructed from glass-reinforced plastic. It features trailing edge flaps which interconnect with the ailerons and allow the entire trailing edge to operate as a flap between -9 and +5 degrees, the flaps also act as ailerons, but deflect only half of the aileron amount. Schempp-Hirth type airbrakes are provided on the wing surface. The B model differs from the A and C model in that it uses a wing spar. The B and C model include several enhancements over the original A model, including a panel, hydraulic disc brake. ASW20s that include a L designation may be fitted with a 1.59 m wingtip extension, the F designation was assigned to A variants produced in France by Centrair. Centrair also produced an FL variant equivalent to the German ASW20L, mark D. Maughmer of Penn State University. The ASW20 is known as a very pleasant handling glider in most respects, the landing flaps, in conjunction with very effective airbrakes, allow the pilot to make exceptionally steep approaches and short field landings when required. Second generation winglets further improved the handling and reduced drag at low to mid speeds, the flexible wing of the A and C models is particularly favored for ridge running, where it absorbs some of the tremendous turbulence found at ridgetop. ASW20 Prototype and initial production ASW20B ASW20BL the ASW20B with detachable outer wing extensions to 16.59 m span, ASW20C ASW20CL the ASW20C with detachable outer wing extensions to 16.59 m span, to compete in the Open-class. College Park, MD, College Park Press, königswinter, EQIP Werbung und Verlag G. m. b. H
