The Glaser-Dirks DG-600 is a
glider
Glider may refer to:
Aircraft and transport Aircraft
* Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight
** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...
manufactured by
Glaser-Dirks as a successor to the
DG-202 and
DG-400 series of gliders where
carbon fiber reinforced plastics was used.
Design and development
The DG-600 fuselage is based on the fuselage of the DG-400 but with a more slender tailboom which also incorporates a tailfin ballast tank with a capacity of 7 liters. The design of the canopy and the instrument panel is practically the same as on other DG gliders.
The control surfaces incorporate
flaperon
A flaperon (a portmanteau of flap and aileron) on an aircraft's wing is a type of control surface that combines the functions of both flaps and ailerons. Some smaller kitplanes have flaperons for reasons of simplicity of manufacture, while ...
s which serve as both flaps and ailerons. The wing has a newly designed thinner airfoil and higher
aspect ratio than previous types of DG gliders. This gives a higher performance but at a cost of worse slow-speed characteristics, making it less suitable for gliding competitions with frequent gaggles in thermals. The same problem is also noticeable on
LS-7 and
ASW-24 gliders, where improved performance was to be achieved with thinner airfoils.
The negative effects (i.e. a stall without much warning) of this design are most pronounced on 15-meter wingspan without winglets. These characteristics caused the relative unpopularity of this glider and only 114 aircraft were produced (partially because the moulds were later destroyed in a factory fire). Later versions with 17 and 18 m wingspan offer much better low-speed handling.
Variants
;DG-600/15:original version with 15 m wingspan
;DG-600/17:version with 17 m wingspan (later changed to 18 m)
;DG-600M:with
Rotax 275
The Rotax 275 is a , single-cylinder, two-stroke aircraft engine, built by BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co. KG of Austria for use in Self-launched Gliders.
Design
The Rotax 275 is a single-cylinder two-stroke engine with an air-cooled cylinder head and ...
engine, capable of self launching
;DG-600/18:
;DG-600M:
;DG-600/18M:
Specifications (15m wings)
NOTE: ''The following data represent later versions of DG-600''
See also
*
List of gliders
This is a list of gliders/ sailplanes of the world, (this reference lists all gliders with references, where available)
Note: Any aircraft can glide for a short time, but gliders are designed to glide for longer.
By nationality
* List of Amer ...
References
External links
DG-600 Article a
Scale Soaring UK
{{DG Flugzeugbau aircraft
1980s German sailplanes
DG Flugzeugbau aircraft
T-tail aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1987