Whatever happened to...

The Edgley EA9 'Optomist' was mainly constructed of
a material called 'Fibrelam' which is also used for
floors in airliners. As far as I know only one protoype
was built, as a production version would have cost
almost as much as a conventional sailplane, but with
little better than K18 (on which it was based) performance.
It was painted green and hence became nicknamed the
'flying cucumber'.

Derek Piggott flew this glider in several Lasham Regionals
and even managed to win his class in it one year. Although
he manages to make almost anything go competitively
- even the PW5!

Derek Copeland
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At 16:30 22 November 2005, Stanford Korwin wrote:
Yes - I have it recorded in one of my my log books.
Edgley EA9.
I flew it in September 1997 at RAF Dishforth for 17
minutes, off an aerotow.

Flew like a K-8 - only with better performance.
Generally handled very nicely - but I found it difficult
to trim out.
I couldn't have been all that impressed because I did
not order one - and much preferred my Open Cirrus anyway.
I can't remember how much the asking price was - but
I don't think it was all that cheap.

sta13.
UK.