The Roberts Cygnet is an American
high-wing
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes.
A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing co ...
,
cruciform tail __NOTOC__
The cruciform tail is an aircraft empennage configuration which, when viewed from the aircraft's front or rear, looks much like a cross. The usual arrangement is to have the horizontal stabilizer intersect the vertical tail somewhere ...
, single-seat,
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 ...
that was designed and produced by
Donald Roberts as a contender for the
IGC World Class
Competition classes in gliding, as in other sports, mainly exist to ensure fairness in competition. However the classes have not been targeted at fostering technological development as in other sports. Instead classes have arisen because of:
* t ...
sailplane.
Design and development
The Cygnet was the sole US entrant in the competition for the World Class sailplane, losing out to the Polish
Politechnika Warszawska PW-5
The Politechnika Warszawska PW-5 ''Smyk'' ( Polish: "Little rascal") is a single seater sailplane designed at the Warsaw University of Technology (Polish: "Politechnika Warszawska") and manufactured in Poland. It is a monotype World Class glider. ...
. As a result only one Cygnet was completed. The prototype was finished and first flown in 1992
The aircraft is made from steel tubing and
aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
, with
fiberglass
Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass ( Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...
fairings. Its span wing employs a Somers-Maughmer SM701
airfoil and features balanced top and bottom
DFS-style
air brakes for glidepath control. A
ballistic parachute
A ballistic parachute, ballistic reserve parachute, or emergency ballistic reserve parachute, is a parachute ejected from its casing by a small explosion, much like that used in an ejection seat. The advantage of the ballistic parachute over a co ...
was to be standard equipment.
Operational history
In August 2011 the sole Cygnet built was still listed on the US
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...
registry Registry may refer to:
Computing
* Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry
* Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names
* Local Internet registry
* Metadata registry, information system for re ...
.
Specifications (Cygnet)
See also
References
External links
Photo of the Cygnet{{World class sailplane competitors
1990s United States sailplanes
Cruciform tail aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1992