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Old 28th Feb 2010, 14:41
  #17 (permalink)  
India Four Two
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Munich MUC/EDDM
Posts: 6,641
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LR,
good old fashioned balance tabs
That makes much more sense, but still, having to put tabs on a glider's ailerons indicates a pretty serious basic design flaw.

Reading the Flight article you posted, it looks like Slingsby were influenced too much by the HP-14 design. The Blanik's ailerons are much larger and the forces quite reasonable.

I was amazed to see the empty weight - 150lb more than a Blanik - and the correspondingly higher minimum sink speed - 48 kts compared to 39 kts. Also, the wing loading is 23% higher!

Politics aside, Slingsby and the ATC would have been much better served by license-built Blaniks. There are many L-13s still providing basic training all over the US and Canada.
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