An Interesting Old Glider on Trademe

[chbessexboy]

I hope if finds a home where it will be on display:

www.trademe.co.nz/a.aspx?id=955980050

[baronbeeza]

75' wingspan.

The Spruce Goose hangar may be available.

[The Red Baron]

Variable Incidence wing, Variable Incidence Elevator, and a variable C of G

So who's volunteering to be the test pilot of this variable beast?.

[chbessexboy]

Sept 28, 2015 19:38:29 GMT 12 The Red Baron said:

Variable Incidence wing, Variable Incidence Elevator, and a variable C of G

So who's volunteering to be the test pilot of this variable beast?.

Perhaps it would require a very-able pilot?

[davidd]

Sounds a bit too close in concept to the Richard Pearse original with everything just TOO variable for safety - perhaps he thought he could work out the correct settings based on CoG location when the actual aircraft was being completed, then lock the variable components into position, or at least centre these components correctly? Just too tricky for words.
David D

[planewriting]

Referring to comment about this big home designed and built glider; it just goes to prove that even in New Zealand there are still "aircraft in barns" (note plural reference) awaiting discovery. Roger Brown, President of the Vintage Kiwi Gliding Club, (of which I am also a member) has kindly agreed to release this story of this and the flying wing discovered in 2015.

"In the mid 1930s, to the mid 1950s, a number of people in the Ruawai area were involved in some unregulated aircraft building and flying. Nothing ofcourse was recorded other than the odd photograph being taken it seems. Doug Righton was one of these people. He was a Northland farmer whose property was in Ruawai on the northern end of the Kaipara Harbour. He designed and built a very impressive, very big glider with a huge 22 metre wing span, which was completed in 1938. He apparently was in communication with Kingsford Smith in Australia for some time it seems, and perhaps this monster might have been the end result of those communications. It can only be speculation. However, he was obviously a person ahead of his time as his glider had incorporated design features that would never be seen as reality on aircraft until many decades later. It had an adjustable variable incidence wing, a variable incidence tail plane, and a most unusual long pointed nose probe with a movable weight attached, so as to change the C.of G, all capable of being adjusted in flight as required. The ‘big wing’ was apparently auto towed on a local beach at the back of the farm, where a local believed it did fly the once. It is unclear whether it ever did get airborne again or if any later attempts were ever made. The design itself was rather impractical as so far as trying to solve a number of aviation’s ‘unsolvable’ problems many decades before they actually were. It was stored in a barn on the property and then many years later moved to another barn at a close friend’s farm property nearby, where it eventually got discovered.
Editor’s note There it stayed until it was rediscovered in 2015 when Vintage Kiwi member Ray Burns got in contact with the V.K team once he learned of its existence through a friend. Two members of the V.K team were dispatched north to check it out.

Also stored in the same barn were the remains [outer wing panels only] of a flying wing which was designed and built a decade later by another person a Mr. T.E. Lawrence, a returning ex WW2 RAF pilot. The flying wing did however get to fly – the once. Again it was auto towed off the same beach, but during the initial climb the pilot released the tow rope landing straight ahead but also tipping over onto its back in the process luckily at low speed, occurring what looked to be some superficial damage. That was fixed overnight and another attempt was made the next day. Alas, just as it got airborne again some one noticed a wing had developed a lot of dihedral that was not there before. The flight was abandoned. The spar on that wing had broken, possible the end result of the previous day's flying attempt. It never flew again. At some stage the flying wing was broken up leaving only the main wings outer panels and the original design drawings that has now become part of our very rich NZ gliding history."

I understand the glider is now stored/owned near Whangarei, on another farm, owned by a relative of a prominent New Zealand glider pilot so its future should be certain. Similarly I am told the flying wing is now at Motat.

[errolmartyn]

Peter,

Mr T. E. Lawrence will be this man, I should think:

Flight Lieutenant NZ411494 Thomas Edward Lawrence, enlisted RNZAF 2 Mar 41
Born Auckland 16 Oct 18 and an architectural draughstman, according to a footnote on page 212 of Volume Three of 'The Official History of New Zealanders with the RAF'. mentions there that he flew Spitfires in the Mediterranean theatre.

He died on 27 Sep 86

Errol

[Peter Lewis]

Tiger Moths ZK-ANQ (Apr1947 - ) and ZK-ASG (Jun48 - 1950) plus Taylorcraft L-2A ZK-ATY (Oct50 - ) were registered to T E Lawrence, Dargaville.