You dream to fly an 18m wingspan sailplane? You hesitate between high performance and legendary. Go to the second one, they are super rare bird and could be good, and finally they are the coolest !
This crazy machine has been designed in the 30s as a school sailplane, and what a glider it is! Think about what was made in other countries around in these times, i.e. mainly a piece of wood with 2 seats and a basic wing, and compare to this handsome Hans Jacobs' design and this is just crazy!
Design to build new pilots
It was a time between the 2 world wars, when excitement was high to produce the best aircrafts, even with no engine, and show the world your engineering superiority.
The design of the glider is close related to the single seater "Rhönsperber", born in 1934, which was a cross country high performance glider for this period. German aviation was growing up super fast on purpose but, still, it was an epic era for gliding community with lot of excitements for pilots and engineers. A lot of effort was indeed made by several big nations to show that building the best aircraft, even with no engine, was in fact showing your potential superiority in aviation technology.
As Rhönsperber was there, it had to be a double seater to teach the pilots how to use it right (and how to become a pilot of whatever, including bombers and fighters...) and here comes the Kranich II. Basically add a seat (behind main spar so the two pilots are separated by the wing...), put a bit more wingspan but keep the (very) cool gully wing. Limitations came from seating positions (make more than one hour and tell me...), especially as seats were designed I think for seat parachute and not back parachute like today (ouch...) and also viewing angles for the pilot on back seat : so they made plexiglass windows into the wing so he (or she) can see below the glider :-)
Did I say cool? Yes, one of the coolest probably, and it flies beautifully!
A vintage flying like a modern one
I have flown quite a lot of vintage gliders during my learning period to become pilot but also with my father, an active pilot among the DEDALE association, a group of fans of these funny old wooden made gliders. Fact is, these ships can be funny, but some of them are a real pain in the ass with weird characteristics in the air (basically forget your scholar pilot technic, this is all the other way...) and/or very heavy controls. Some are both even if they are beautiful.
But this DFS Kranich II is light on the controls and flies in a very standard way! knowing if it is a bit of luck or a master of design, I don't know, but it works beautifully. Except comfort is nowhere here, you get a great time flying it!
When Otto Bacher, active member and instructor of my club (Fliegergruppe Wolf-Hirth) and member of the "Flying Museum" here, in Kirchheim unter Teck, checked me on the glider to allow me to fly it, he simply explained "just avoid to make steep turn as the glider will simply become very poor in performance this way, so not climbing anymore. Except for that it is a standard glider". So except this "characteristic", typical from old wing profiles of pre-war era, nothing to say! Sure, speed are limited : 65-90kph is your "friend zone". But glider is a gem, funny, light, accurate, you never think you are not in command.
You want to save a vintage
Building back a vintage glider is not the main task. Saving it from bad weather and storage conditions, making it the way you think you will be able to, one day, give it to a "younger than you" is the task, just to keep it alive from generation to generation.
Sometimes I see on social media a young pilot excited to buy a nice old vintage glider for "nothing". It can be in flyable conditions, even at very low price. But the main difference between a vintage and a modern glider is the difficulty to store it and to maintain it in a good enough shape so it can fly and fly again in the future.
They are sturdy pieces of wood and fabrics for sure but time is quite agressive on their skull and skin, even worse if you don't get a good trailer to travel with them or store them in good conditions in winter.
So yes, it will be unbelievable bottom price, but if you think wider, that you are just one of the owner of this ship in its life, who will, one day, sell it (give it...) to be sure that next generation will still enjoy to fly it, then becomes the real costs. Yes, you could just forget it and showcase it in a museum, but these machines were built to fly, built for fun, adventure, and what is in a museum will never see the sun again. So please when you dream about a vintage glider, think about how to maintain it for the future generation.
My short list of vintage gliders I flew
I flew some vintages :
- learnt to fly on Castel 25S, a side by side design (not good at all but it flies...), well know one for this crazy french-UK movie "La Grande Vadrouille" with Louis de Funès and Bourvil (never watched that, go for it, it is hilarious) :
- then on Fauvel AV22 (my father's vintage), a french concept of tailless gliders, with just one panel instruments in front and a back seat higher than front one, so the pilot on the back can see the instruments too from "above the shoulders". I flew also the single seater version AV36 of this picture with its very special double rudder design. Very funny gliders and not so bad in glide, especially the double seater! (better than an Ask13).
- then on more typical club vintage gliders from Schleicher : double seater Ask13 and single seaters Ka8b, Ka6e (another gem!), Ask18. Only the Ka6e is real vintage, the others are basic made but a bit more modern school ships.
- The DFS Kranich II
- The Gö4, a side by side double seater, much less enjoyable than the Kranich... but with a happy mouse face and the side by side position makes all the fun.
- The SZD Foka, probably the best design ever made on a wooden made 15m wingspan glider in the 60s, what a profile !!!! You are a straighter pilot in this !
- and a very simple design in Denmark, very funny! Technic to pilot it was very academic (normal with such short wings...) but don't forget to be very close to the airfield as "gliding" is not its main characteristic. Minimum sink rate is 2.3m/s ish...
You want to visit some gliding museum around the world?
Here they are :
- in UK, Lasham (south-west London)
- in France, Angers (south-west Paris) :
- in Germany, Wasserkuppe (north-east Frankfürth)
- in Denmark, Arnborg (south Herning)
- in USA, Soaring Museum (Soaring Hill, Elmira, NY State, north-west New-York city)
You have a museum and you want to share its details on this page, contact me by Facebook @benjaminneglais
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