Latest Newsletter pipistrel Taurus

Hello guys, we're just published the latest newsletter on the Pipistrel
Taurus aircraft which is just been released and is in serial production.

The link to the newsletter follows below, enjoy. Michael Coates

http://www.mcp.com.au/sinus/newslett...letter-30.html

Interesting! Thanks for sharing it with us.







"Newsgroups" wrote in message
:

Hello guys, we're just published the latest newsletter on the Pipistrel
Taurus aircraft which is just been released and is in serial production.

The link to the newsletter follows below, enjoy. Michael Coates

http://www.mcp.com.au/sinus/newslett...letter-30.html

Newsgroups wrote:
Hello guys, we're just published the latest newsletter on the Pipistrel
Taurus aircraft which is just been released and is in serial production.

It looks like a really nice glider, and I hope one will be at the SSA
convention in 2006 so USA pilots can look at it. Any plans for that?

If the polar is correct, it's truly a remarkable glider: as drawn, it
shows the L/D increasing above 150 kph! The L/D chart doesn't show this,
so I think the polar needs correcting to match the one in the detailed
specifications page.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

The info on the detailed page is being updated tomorrow.... The
original info was from the prototype, the latest info from the first
serial aircraft with a number of little improvements. Thanks Michael


Eric Greenwell wrote:
Newsgroups wrote:

Hello guys, we're just published the latest newsletter on the
Pipistrel Taurus aircraft which is just been released and is in serial
production.


It looks like a really nice glider, and I hope one will be at the SSA
convention in 2006 so USA pilots can look at it. Any plans for that?

If the polar is correct, it's truly a remarkable glider: as drawn, it
shows the L/D increasing above 150 kph! The L/D chart doesn't show this,
so I think the polar needs correcting to match the one in the detailed
specifications page.

Hi all,

I am very impressed by this (relatively) small two-seater. The airplane
truly looks great. The glide performance is impressive for a 15.2 m
span two-seater. I still have 2 questions though:

1. How good is the climb-performance in you average thermal? I
calculated the Taurus' wing load at 472.5 kg (MTOM) to be 38.3 kg/m^2.
This approximately equal to the minimum wing load of the Ventus2 Cm and
to the DG808 with a person of 80 kg aboard. So I expect that it will
climb reasonably good. Any comment?

2. Any noise figures yet?

Off topic:

I ask this because I have the following idea. I live in a part of the
Netherlands (Europe) where there are 2500 residents/km^2. In 1997 my
gliding club had to move because of building projects near my city
(Delft). We moved to the national soaring centre, which is 135 km from
Delft. The latter is a real problem for a gliding club that has 75%
students (@Delft Univ. of Techn). The travel expenses and required
time-input are just too great for them. Hence, there is a decline in
our membership numbers.

Therefore, I have been searching for a relatively cheap method to
introduce the student-community to gliding. Preferably it should be
possible to fly in the neighborhood of Delft, within cycling distance
because (note: it is NOT common for students to own a car). It is
however, impossible to find a suitable patch of land for a winch launch
operation in our region.

To resolve this, I have come up with the following idea:
regulation-wise it is allowed to operate UL aircraft from fields that
are at least 300 m in length. Self Launching UL gliders (e.g. Taurus)
that have (reasonably) good performance are now becoming available.
Thus it seems to be interesting to investigate the possibility to
change to SL UL gliders and try to fly near Delft again.

General aviation has a very negative image in the NL though, mainly
because of the noise SEP aircraft produce and because of their
environmentally unfriendly image. Therefore it would be ideal if
aircraft, like the Taurus, were very very quiet, or when it were
possible to make them very quiet.

Any ideas on whether something like that would be possible with gliders
like the Taurus? Is a conversion to LiPo batteries and brushless PM
motor possible weight-wise?

Kind regards,
Diederick Joosten