The
Open Cirrus Association Newsletter
http://207.149.139.40/default.htm
Volume VI, Issue 2
May, 2001
Mark
Fisher and Dave Wright purchased No.
159 (VH-GOM) from Frank Erdmann in
March of this year, and are in the process of installing a Fisher “Tops”
engine pod on it! It’s
presently undergoing a full refurbish, (left picture), the end of a long
restoration project after the ship crashed in a spin accident about ten years
ago. The front canopy
Cirrus
Cover Shot on Soaring Magazine
The
wonderful picture taken last July of No. 67 by Hiroshi Seo,
mentioned in the last newsletter, was featured on the cover of the April,
2001 Soaring magazine. This lovely
photo will also be in a tabletop book about classic aircraft of the world to be
published, in Japanese and English, this summer.
In the same issue, there was a comical story about the same ship, equipped with
it’s bicycle off-airport return vehicle affixed!
It included a picture of the Cirrus with a faired recumbent bicycle
mounted on a rack on the aft fuselage!
The
Cirri at the Long Mynd
There
are two – No. 21 (BGA 1473),
owned by Mark Whitton and others, and No.
22 (BGA 1475) , owned by David Rance and Chris Ellis, flying there with the
Midlands Gliding Club now. No. 21
is a particularly interesting ship in that it is another (out of a total of
three) to have had its wingspan extended to 18.8 meters.
It was also the subject of extensive testing by the Cranfield Institute.
. . . (See below)
The
Results of the International Mailing
The
last newsletter mailing to many European (mostly German) Cirrus owners netted
some new information. We have now
one new listing, with picture, of a Belgian Cirrus (flying in France), and new
information about a couple of the German machines. We also discovered that about a half-dozen of the listed
German owners have incorrect addresses, since many of the newsletters were
returned. However, the mailing did
result in the addition of a quite a good bit of new data in the listings which
are now available on the website. Check
it out!
We’re
STILL looking for the status and/or location of nineteen Cirruses!
Memories
of No. 105
Tom
Tyson of Greensboro, NC <Thomas.Tyson@infineon.com>
writes: “The
auto accident referred to in the article about the glider occurred about ten
miles north of Rod's house in Chadd's Ford, PA as I was towing it to Tom
Knauff's for a pre-purchase inspection. It was a rainy Saturday morning and I
was driving in city traffic at well below the speed limit, which meant everyone
was rushing past me. A mini van passed, then pulled in right in front of me and
stopped abruptly to keep from running a red light. I ALMOST got stopped before I
slid into the back of the van. Total damage to my truck was a slightly buckled
hood and left front fender. The glider was not damaged in any way, thought the
articulated fuselage nose support in the trailer was bent when the glider
fuselage slid forward about two inches. I continued on to Tom's and after a
thorough inspection later that week, Paul Weedon pronounced it one of the best
preserved Cirri he had ever seen. I cheerfully concluded the purchase and a few
weeks later, towed it back to North Carolina where I flew it at Swan Creek
Gliderport in Elkin, NC, just east of the Smokies. I last flew it at Art
Mathews' airfield in the Saquatchie Valley just before Dr. Puckett purchased it.
“Some
of the most enjoyable flying I have experienced in the 30+ years since I soloed
occurred in 77CN, and I
have to say that the biggest mistake of my soaring career was to sell 77CN to
buy an ASW-17 before my wife and I moved to Austin, TX that fall. The '17 was a
better ship for western conditions, but now that I've moved back east I REALLY
miss the big Cirrus.
“Hindsight
is always 20-20. So no, I had Absolutely No disappointment or disillusionment
with "CN", just a stupid case of "Bigger Bird" fever.”
More on the “Cranfield
Report”
And the “Cirrus B” Issue Reopened!
Cirrus
No. 21 (1473) is another of the “long wing” Cirruses, now based at the Long
Mynd and owned by Ralph Jones, Mark Whitton, and others.
No. 21 was the subject of a serious testing program by H. A. Torode of
the Cranfield Institute, back in 1971. Thanks
to the generosity of Peter Gill, of Staffordshire, we have a copy of that
report! We’re trying to get
copies, from Cranfield, of the graphics which accompanied the report which are
suitable for scanning so we can post the entire report on the website.
When
we can get that copy, we plan to add a “performance” section to the website,
including any documented flight tests and/or reported performance improvement
modifications from the owners.
Meanwhile,
the report re-raises the issue of the “Cirrus B” question, which we thought
had been settled! Torode reports
that No. 21 “…has only one non-standard feature, which consists of an
extension of the wing span by 1 metre to 18.7 metres (62.8 feet).
This modification, designated Cirrus B, has been incorporated by the
Schempp-Hirth Company in an attempt to improve the low speed performance of the
sailplane.”
This
information is in direct conflict with a personal conversation with Tilo
Holighaus some years back in which he reported that the Cirrus B was the
conventionally tailed, production model (vice the V-tailed prototype) and that
the factory had never provided or approved any wing extension modifications.
Finally,
to make matters still worse, Herr Helmut Trieber of Schempp-Hirth wrote on May 3, 2001:
“In the Data Sheet Nor [sic] 265 only the
serial-number 16 is designated with "Cirrus B" with an extended
wingspan of 18,34 m. This is an extension of the wingspan of 0.6 m and not 1 m
as you have mentioned below. This modification of the wingspan was done
according drawing No 50.002-B, Cirrus B, Flügelspitze (wing tip). No official
documentation is available for a wingspan extension of 1 m.”
No.
16 was last known to be in Germany (in 1998), designated