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The Silent Club is a single seater
sailplane
A glider or sailplane is a type of glider aircraft used in the leisure activity and sport of gliding (also called soaring). This unpowered aircraft can use naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to gain altitude. Sailplan ...
of Italian manufacture. It is of the FAI type
DU Class glider. It is sold by Alisport ready-to-fly or kit-built as pure glider or self-launching glider. The self-launching version is fitted with a
single-blade propeller
A single-blade propeller may be used on aircraft to generate thrust. Normally propellers are multiblades but the simplicity of a single-blade propeller fits well on motorized gliders, because it permits the design of a smaller aperture of the glid ...
belt-driven by a
two-stroke engine
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of t ...
or optionally by an electric motor.
The electric version was the first production electric-powered commercially available aircraft and appeared in 1997. It is driven by a DC electric motor running on of batteries that provide 1.4 kWh of power.
The highly modified version, the Alisport Silent Club-J is a self-launching aerobatic jet motor glider shown on the U.S.
airshow
An air show (or airshow, air fair, air tattoo) is a public event where aircraft are exhibited.
They often include aerobatics demonstrations, without they are called "static air shows" with aircraft parked on the ground.
The largest air show m ...
circuit and all over the world by Bob Carlton,. It is powered by twin
AMT-USA AT-450 jet engines (200 N (45 Lbf) of
thrust
Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ...
each) originally developed for
radio-controlled aircraft
A radio-controlled aircraft (often called RC aircraft or RC plane) is a small flying machine that is controlled remotely by an operator on the ground using a hand-held radio transmitter. The transmitter continuously communicates with a receiver ( ...
.
Design and development
*The fuselage is carbon and glass fiber composite with epoxy resin.
*The wingspan is 12 meters without winglets.
*The flaperons stretch for 10.0 meters of the full wingspan.
*Schempp-Hirth-type
spoilers extend on the upper wing surface only.
*Fixed or retractable main wheel behind the pilot, with shock absorber and drum brake activated via spoiler control lever aft travel.
*The Silent Club has light ailerons, light elevator, along with a generous rudder. The roll rate is quick due to the lively feel of the ailerons.
*
Stall is predictable and recovery is simple. In level flight as airspeed is reduced when approaching the stall speed the sailplane vibrates a little, at this point decreasing the angle of attack results in airspeed increase and normal flight resumes, from a climbing attitude the sailplane stalls decisively, the nose pitches down gently and recovery is easy with stick forward.
*
Spin
Spin or spinning most often refers to:
* Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning
* Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis
* Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...
entry is obvious and recovered with rudder and stick.
Specifications
See also
References
* Silent Club Flight Manual
* https://web.archive.org/web/20070308124458/http://www.alisport.com/eu/eng/alianti.htm
Glider Handbook* ''Soaring'', March 2005
{{Alisport aircraft
1990s Italian sailplanes
Glider aircraft
Alisport aircraft