The CVV1 Pinguino ( en,
Penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...
) was a single seat, high performance
glider designed and built in Italy in the mid-1930s, the first of a series of gliders from the
Milan Polytechnic. It did not go into production.
Design and development
The Pinguino was the first design from the Centro Volo a Vela (CVV), or Experimental Soaring Centre, of the Royal Polytechnic of
Milan. Ermenegildo Preti was only eighteen when he began the design.
[ It was a wood and fabric aircraft,][ a cantilever, gull winged monoplane in the manner of the slightly earlier German ]DFS Rhönsperber
The DFS Rhönsperber, otherwise known as the Schweyer Rhönsperber or Jacobs Rhönsperber (in English ''Rhön Sparrowhawk'') was a single seat competition glider (sailplane), glider designed in Germany by Hans Jacobs and first flown in 1935. Fo ...
.[ The mid mounted wing was built around a single spar with a ]plywood
Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...
covered D-box ahead of it and fabric behind. In plan, it had a constant chord
Chord may refer to:
* Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously
** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning
* Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve
* Chord ( ...
centre section, filling about a third of the span, and outer sections with taper on both leading
In typography, leading ( ) is the space between adjacent lines of type; the exact definition varies.
In hand typesetting, leading is the thin strips of lead (or aluminium) that were inserted between lines of type in the composing stick to incre ...
and trailing edges ending in semi- elliptical tips. The centre section had positive dihedral but there was none on the outer panels. Aileron
An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...
s occupied the whole of these outer panels, hinged parallel to the trailing edge. Short span airbrakes extended upwards only, mounted just behind the spar at the outer ends of the centre section.[
The fuselage of the Pinguino was blunt nosed and steadily tapering ventrally aft, with a ply covering formed by twenty round frames and six ]longeron
In engineering, a longeron and stringer is the load-bearing component of a framework.
The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural ...
s. A slight step held the narrow tailplane just above the fuselage, far enough forward that the trailing edge of the fabric covered split elevator was ahead of the rudder hinge. Neither rear control surface was balanced. Like the tailplane, fin was also narrow but the fabric covered rudder was broad, with a curved edge that reached down to the keel, protected by an integral tail bumper. The main landing gear was a wooden skid mounted on rubber shock absorber
A shock absorber or damper is a mechanical or hydraulic device designed to absorb and damp shock impulses. It does this by converting the kinetic energy of the shock into another form of energy (typically heat) which is then dissipated. Most sh ...
s. The pilot sat at the wing leading edge under a protuberant, multipiece glazed canopy of teardrop form.[
The first flight of the Pinguino was made in December 1937 from ]Arcore
Arcore ( lmo, Arcor) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Monza and Brianza in the Italian region Lombardy, located about northeast of Milan.
Arcore borders the following municipalities: Usmate Velate, Camparada, Lesmo, Biassono, V ...
. No production followed.[
]
Operational history
The Pinguino competed in the second National Meeting held at Asiago in 1938.[
]
Specifications
References
External links
Göttingen 535 airfoilNACA 23012 airfoil
{{CVV aircraft
1930s Italian sailplanes
Aircraft first flown in 1937