tonycondon
Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
For most of this year my friend Matt has been working in my garage on his Standard Austria SH-1. The SH-1 is sort of the pinnacle of wooden glider performance, the last of its breed before fiberglass designs became popular in the late 1960's. The SH-1 was the last of 3 design changes, having a better airfoil than the earlier versions and featuring a retractable landing gear which gave much better ground clearance.
Matt spent the summer refinishing the wings and covering the all flying V-tails. He stripped the wing down to bare plywood and then filled in all the low spots. I think he said he spent 80 hours filling and sanding and filling and sanding and it shows. Many club-mates this weekend spent several minutes staring at the tops of the wings, looking for any sort of ripple. None were found.
The wing is mostly plywood skinned but a small portion of the top of the wing near the trailing edge is covered in fabric. The leading edges of the tail are plywood skinned but we wrapped them entirely in fabric. He used Superflite with Stewart's Systems. There were some struggles and we had a good solid week of late nights in the garage painting but it turned out really good and he is really happy.
I did the first flight yesterday with the GoPro running in the cockpit I provided color commentary and pointers during my short flight. No thermals for me
The glider flies really nice, has a few quirks but nothing dangerous, and the performance is really good, book value is 34:1. Matt and I reviewed the video and off he went. He landed with a BIG smile on his face and then went up for two more flights later in the afternoon, including some soaring on a weak day.
I'm really looking forward to him flying it more next season.
Matt spent the summer refinishing the wings and covering the all flying V-tails. He stripped the wing down to bare plywood and then filled in all the low spots. I think he said he spent 80 hours filling and sanding and filling and sanding and it shows. Many club-mates this weekend spent several minutes staring at the tops of the wings, looking for any sort of ripple. None were found.
The wing is mostly plywood skinned but a small portion of the top of the wing near the trailing edge is covered in fabric. The leading edges of the tail are plywood skinned but we wrapped them entirely in fabric. He used Superflite with Stewart's Systems. There were some struggles and we had a good solid week of late nights in the garage painting but it turned out really good and he is really happy.
I did the first flight yesterday with the GoPro running in the cockpit I provided color commentary and pointers during my short flight. No thermals for me
I'm really looking forward to him flying it more next season.
