I believe the glider you refer to was made out of 'Fibrelam',
which is the same stuff as airliner floors, and was
built at Old Sarum airfield near Salisbury, if that
counts as the West Country. Its official name was the
Edgley Optomist, although it was painted green and
acquired the nickname of 'The Flying Cucumber'. Derek
Piggott certainly flew it to a class win in the Lasham
Regionals, but I am not so sure about the Club Class
Nationals.

Only one prototype was built. The problem was that
it would have cost far more than a good secondhand
'club class' glider to produce, but with less performance.
Still at least somebody tried!

Derek Copeland

At 17:24 14 June 2006, Al Eddie wrote:
I think you may be referring to a prototype K-18 lookalike
that appeared a few years ago, cobbled together, I
beleive, by the same outfit that produced the Edgley
Optica. One of it's USPs was that it was skinned with
the same lightweight material used for airliner cabin
flooring. Hmmm....

I think the project was funded by a Millenium grant,
or some such scam, much the same as the Greenwich Dome
and, to my knowledge, it never took any orders.

To be fair though, and to his credit, Derek Piggot
flew it with some success in the UK Club Class Nationals
during testing.

Hardly an 'industry' though....