ASK13a Experimental

[Guest TOSGcentral]

Hi Sportsfans,

 

 

This forum has gone quiet again! I am continuing the ‘Memory Lane’ series but the last week has been busy for me and next week will be worse. However an interesting snippet came in yesterday from a good gliding mate.

 

 

 

I will be using some of the following information in ‘Memory Lane’ but for now it may make an interesting bit of historical reading/general interest for some of you.

 

 

On the Gold Coast a syndicate is busily engaged in a 40 year inspection, major repair and major rebuild to an ASK13. The whole situation is a bit messy but has involved bringing in a set or damaged wings from the UK to go with the fuselage etc. Those wings have proven to be most interesting.

 

 

The most immediately noticeable feature was the tips had ‘fences’ or ‘winglets’ on them and generally the wings looked a bit different although the roots were standard.

 

 

So some solid investigative work was undertaken to ensure that the aircraft would be airworthiness compliant and there would be no safety or legal issues with it.

 

 

Schleichers were most helpful and identified the wings as coming from an experimental ASK13 they had built and done 100 hours testing on. They then sold it to a German club as an ‘ASK13A’ but under standard type certificate as the main structure had not changed, just been improved a bit. Subsequently the aircraft went to UK where the fuselage was written off and the D boxes on the wings damaged. The Oz syndicate bought the wings from the insurance company and had them shipped to Oz to go with their fuselage.

 

 

In the meantime Schleicher had found the winglets in a factory clear out and forwarded them to the UK owners (which I thought was damn nice of them).

 

 

A phone call to the Schleicher factory by the Oz syndicate uncovered the story.

 

 

The machine had been built to examine if the ASK13 could compete more effectively with the Bergfalke 4. The ’13 ran rings around the ‘4 as a trainer but the ‘4 ran rings around the ’13 in straight glide performance. Schleicher wanted both!

 

 

Mainly the wings were re-profiled and various mods were put on and taken off, including the winglets, while the machine was under testing by the factory.

 

 

The result was good. Accurate measuring gave a solid 32:1 glide angle against the original quoted ’13s 28:1 (which I fancy was more like 26 or 27) and the Berg 4’s 34:1 (which I also consider a bit optimistic). That was no mean feat getting a two seater to go better than a Ka6!

 

The winglets proved to give only a slight performance enhancement at over 80 knots.

 

 

Anyway the redesign never went into production – they built the ASK21 glass two seater instead and used the essential profiling and wing from this experimental to do so.

 

 

So towards the end of this year one very hot and historically important ASK13a is going to be flying in Oz. I really must see if I can beg a ride in it.