When the 2-32 was first introduced into Southern California in a
promotional tour around 1964, the slapping of foreheads by the aeronautical
engineering community sounded like applause at Carnegie Hall.
Why, they asked, did you use an old NACA turbulent flow airfoil at the wing
tips which had a very sharp stall and linearly interpolate to a gentle
stalling laminar flow section at the root? What do you call the section in
between? Why do the tips stall before the root? Do you understand
stall/spin behavior?

The structural engineers wondered aloud about the very light wings and very
heavy fuselage. They had been schooled to see any "oil canning" of wing
skins as totally unacceptable. Needless to say, they were appalled by the
2-32's wing skins.

Pilots used to Dick Schreders and Irv Prue's designs asked why such a large
glider had such poor performance. This bad impression was exceeded only by
the introduction of the 2-33 a few months later.

The first Libelle's, Phoebii and Diamonts were introduced about the same
time. One instantly felt that this was an inflection point in aeronautics.
As they say, the rest is history.


Bill Daniels


"kirk.stant" wrote in message
oups.com...

Back in the 1970's, Les Horvath used to do an airshow routine in one.
The landing pattern was interesting....

Fly downwind right over the runway at 800-1000' AGL, then at some
distance beyond the threshold, he'd open the dive brakes and push over
into a vertical dive, roll 180 and pull out of the dive and complete
the landing.

Pretty cool!

-Tom

Roger that! One day at Estrella (back around 1977, I think) I watched
Les practice his airshow routine. He finished with a reverse half
cuban 8 from the deck to a landing - with his wife in the front seat!

That 2-32 later was crashed - as far as I know the remains are still in
the weeds and creosote bushes next to the hangar at Estrella...

The 2-32 is the one Schweizer that should still be in production, IMHO.

Kirk