logbook february–april 2019 JONKER SAILPLANES COMPANY RESTRUCTURING. Jonker has announced that, as the result of the growth the company has experienced in recent years they are restructuring. AP Kotze has been appointed as Engineering Manager. Kotze was previously employed by the firm as Jet/Final Assembly Section Leader advancing to Design Engineer and became responsible for the jet development programme and the certification programme as the Compliance Verification Engineer. He is also an excellent glider pilot.
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SCHLEICHER INTRODUCES NEW DESIGN TEAM With the new AS 33, Alexander Schleicher breaks with the decades long tradition of including the designer’s name in a new aircraft’s model designation. New developments from the Schleicher design division are products of teamwork. At the same time the depth of development expertise within Schleicher is significantly increased through the use of new technologies such as, for example, modern CFD software. Dipl.-Ing. Martin Heide, the last ‘named’ designer has moved on to well-deserved retirement. Schleicher’s current design team is now led by three highly qualified aerospace engineers, supported by other extremely experienced collaborators. The team are: • Joschka Schmeisl, Leader of Design and Production. He has been with the AS design team since 2003 • Paul Anklam, Dipl.-Ing. Aerospace, Technical University Dresden. With the AS design team since 2013 • Ulrich Simon, M. Sc. Aerospace, University of Stuttgart. With the AS design team since 2017 • Tobias Mörsel, M. Sc. Aerospace, Technical University Berlin • Manfred Münch, In the AS design team since 1981 • Andreas Storch, In the AS design team since 2010
AP Kotze at the Worlds in Hosín.
OSTIV prize awarded to Carbon Fibre Pioneer At this year's OSTIV meeting in Hosín, CZ, former Schempp-Hirth head engineer Helmut Treiber was honoured with the highest scientific award in the gliding world, the OSTIV-Prize. Trieber introduced Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) into Schempp-Hirth’s serial wing production with the Nimbus 2b forty years ago, saving a significant amount of weight while showing a higher torsional stiffness and less wing twist in highspeed flight. With the new carbon fibre technology, he paved the way for manufacturing thinner and more efficient airfoils, leading to a big performance gain in the sailplane industry. See the full citation on the OSTIV website under news and more information about Trieber’s work with carbon fibre and an interview with him in Schempp-Hirth’s magazine Minimoa, available through their website.
This means that the Alexander Schleicher Segelflugzeugbau design team is ideally constituted and equipped to deal with future design challenges. Joschka Schmeisl says, “To shape the creation of an aircraft from the initial concept all the way to marketing, to coordinate the whole process and then to actually fly it myself, is one of the most rewarding activities I can imagine.”
UPDATE TO FLARM FLARM Technology has announced that UK and Ireland has been selected as the first new region for the updated and improved obstacle warning subsystem, making sure that British pilots can now safely avoid flying into fixed obstacles. Obstacles include cables cars, antennas and power lines. They also now offer high-resolution databases for the following regions: Austria & Slovenia, France, Germany, Northwest Italy, Northeast Italy, Switzerland, and UK & Ireland and are looking to expand to cover Benelux, Scandinavia, Spain & Portugal, as well as selected regions of Eastern Europe and North America. There is no word on when New Zealand and Australia will be included.
February–April 2019
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