Austria/SHK/SB5/V-tail handling

[Marc Teugels]

I would like any comments on the handling/owning these ships
Any experience on SB5 ?

How does a V-tail handle ?


Thanks

MT

[Ian Forbes]

Marc Teugels wrote:

> I would like any cquirksn the handling/owning these ships
> Any experience on amended How does a V-tail handle ?

I owned a share in an Austria SH for a few years and flew about 300
hours in it.

When flying, at flying speed, the V-tail handles exactly the same as a
conventional tail. In fact the only way to know that you have a V tail
behind you is by looking over your shoulder. With the Austria you can
just see the tips of the tail from the cockpit.

On the ground the V-tail is a bit vulnerable. Particularly when pushing
the glider backwards in long grass, it is very easy to damage the trim
tabs. I fitted a bungy cord into the cockput that could be used to tie
the stick back when the glider was on the ground. This lifted the
trailing edge of the V tails up and out of danger when pushing
backwards on the ground.

Be careful to check the proper attachment of the V-tail on every D.I. A
gentle pull on each tail will quickly show if the locking mechanism is
not properly engaged. It is quite easy to assemble it incorrectly and a
take off without the locks engaged is likely to be fatal.

Below flying speed, the V-tail has a few quirks. For example, if you
apply full back stick on the roll out after landing, the V-tails stall
and you loose rudder authority. If you move the stick forward a bit
such that the tail is nearly flying, you have good rudder authority
down to a much lower speed. I discovered similar effects during cross
wind take offs and aerobatics (all in below flying speed situations).

The original Austria handbook specified a spin recovery technique of
centralising the controls. An amendment to the handbook was later
issued, which specified the conventional technique. In my experience
you could only spin it with fully crossed controls. Any movement of
either stick or aileron from the crossed position, or forward movement
of the stick, lead to an instant recovery. There was a strong nose down
pitch on recovery with negative G's and lots of hight loss.

The handbook was also amended to reduce the allowed C of G. We always
were very careful to fly it with CG just forward of neutral.

Otherwise the Austria had very nicely balance controls with lots of
feedback. It was a pleasure to fly but required significant pilot
attention to extract the best performance. I had lots of fun flying it.



Ian