| Falke | |
|---|---|
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| Role | Secondary trainingglider Type of aircraft |
| National origin | Germany |
| Manufacturer | Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft (RRG) |
| Designer | Alexander Lippisch |
| First flight | 1930 |
TheRRG Falke (English:Falcon) of 1930 was asecondary trainingglider designed byAlexander Lippisch inGermany and intended to provide better performance than his earlierRRG Prüfling whilst being easier to fly because of its inherent stability. It was sold as plans for both club and commercial production and was built in Germany and abroad.
Secondary gliders were meant to be used by student pilots after an introduction to flight inprimary gliders like Lippisch'sZögling. His first secondary glider, the 1926RRG Prüfling, was disappointing, with a performance not much better than some contemporary primaries; lacking inherent stability its handling was not good either. After that design Lippisch had been working on aircraft which relied on wing sweep to provide stability in pitch, having no horizontal tail. The wing of theStorch IV was swept at about 17° and carried lobateailerons which extended behind the rest of thetrailing edge and were hinged at right angles to thefuselage line. He decided that his ideal secondary glider should use a similar wing but also have a conventional tail which enabled him to dispense with thewing tipfins andrudders of the Storch and to reduce the wing sweep to about 12°.[1]
The inner part of the Falke's wing had constantchord but it became a little narrower outboard where the trailing edge sweep decreased. The ailerons increased the chord again to about its inboard value. It was a twospar structure withplywood covering from the forward spar around theleading edge, forming a D-shaped torsion box. Aft the wing, including the ailerons, wasfabric covered. It was mounted high over the fuselage on two vertical underwingcabane struts, one on each side of the opencockpit to the forward wing strut and by a ply covered, triangular support pylon centrally behind it. On each side a V-pair oflift struts braced the two wing spars, at about 40% of the span, to the lower fuselagelongeron.[1]
The Falke's fuselage had a hexagonal cross section with deep vertical sides and was ply covered from the nose to the rear of thecockpit. On the underside this covering extended aft to the tail where the fuselage sides were again ply covered. The similarly covered fin, with an almost vertical leading edge was topped by the rudder's ply coveredaerodynamic balance forward of the hinge. The rest of the rudder was fabric covered apart from its tip. The broadtailplane, mounted on top of the fuselage ahead of the fin to which it was braced with single strut on each side, had straight swept leading edges and square tips and carriedelevators that were rectangular apart for a cut-out for rudder movement. The horizontal tail was fabric covered except at its leading edge. The glider landed on a long, rubber sprung skid reaching from the nose to well behind the cockpit, assisted by afaired tailskid.[1]
The Falke first flew in 1930 and was sold through plans for construction by clubs and commercial manufacturers. RRG sold twelve quite quickly to theWasserkuppe club.Alexander Schleicher andEdmund Schneider produced them inGermany and Slingsby built nine inEngland as theSlingsby Falcon before designing, in 1935, a two-seat version, theSlingsby Falcon III. This had a span of 17.69 m (58 ft 0.5 in)[1] One Slingsby Falcon I was converted into aflying boat glider in 1941.[2] In 1933 one Falke was built in Lithuanian Aviation workshops by the drawings purchased by theAeroclub of Lithuania. Following its crash in 1936 a slightly modified unlicensed version of Falke was built by A. Gysas.[3]
In 1931 theFalke RVa appeared, with an increased span and revised cabane struts. The laterSuper Falke had a yet larger span but by then the design was seriously outdated.[1]
Data from Sailplanes 1920-1945 (2006)[1]
General characteristics
Performance