The ASW 12, initially known as the AS 12, is a single-seat
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
glass composite construction. The
wing
A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...
is shoulder mounted and it has a
T-tail
A T-tail is an empennage configuration in which the tailplane is mounted to the top of the fin. The arrangement looks like the capital letter T, hence the name. The T-tail differs from the standard configuration in which the tailplane is ...
. It is essentially a developed production version of the
Akaflieg Darmstadt D-36
The Akaflieg Darmstadt D-36 Circe is a single seat, high performance sailplane designed and built in Germany in the mid-1960s, one of the early "glass ships". It was the winner at the German National Championships in 1964 and came second in the ...
.
History
In 1965
Gerhard Waibel left the Technical University of Darmstadt to enter
Alexander Schleicher GmbH & Co
Alexander Schleicher GmbH & Co is a major manufacturer of sailplanes located in Poppenhausen, near Fulda in Germany.
It is also the oldest sailplane manufacturer in the world.
History
The company was founded in 1927 by Alexander Schleicher u ...
as a designer. His first project for his new employer was the ASW 12. This sailplane achieved numerous records and victories in national and international competitions. The exploits of
Hans-Werner Grosse
Hans-Werner Grosse (28 November 1922 – 18 February 2021) was a German Luftwaffe bomber pilot and glider pilot who established 50 world records approved by FAI Gliding Commission.
Early life
Grosse was born in Swinemünde, now Świnoujście i ...
in an ASW 12 are legendary, e.g. the 1,461 km flight of April 25, 1972 from
Lübeck
Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...
to
Biarritz
Biarritz ( , , , ; Basque also ; oc, Biàrritz ) is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located from the border with Spain. ...
which stood for thirty years as the absolute World Free Distance Record. Previously, on July 26, 1970, Ben Greene and
Wally Scott
Wallace Aiken Scott (July 4, 1924 – February 8, 2003) was an American aviator and author, a holder of several international sailplane records, and a multi-time recipient of the Lewin B. Barringer trophy awarded for the longest, free-distance, ...
co-set a World Free Distance Record by flying separate ASW-12 sailplanes a distance of from Odessa, TX to Columbus, NE.
The ASW12 was succeeded by the
ASW17.
Construction
The
fuselage
The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...
of the ASW 12 was extremely slender for its time. It had a retractable landing gear and a two-piece canopy, of greater depth than was the case with the D-36. Each individual fuselage was manufactured - as with the D-36 - in two halves laid-up on positive molds. Construction comprised a double sandwich of
glass-fibre reinforced composite over
balsa wood
''Ochroma pyramidale'', commonly known as the balsa tree, is a large, fast-growing tree native to the Americas. It is the sole member of the genus ''Ochroma''. The tree is famous for its wide usage in woodworking, with the name ''balsa'' being ...
.
The wings are double-tapered with a modified Wortmann FX 62-K-131 profile at the
root
In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...
and Wortmann FX 60-126 at the
tip
Tip commonly refers to:
* Tip (gambling)
* Tip (gratuity)
* Tip (law enforcement)
* another term for Advice (opinion), Advice
Tip or TIP may also refer to:
Science and technology
* Tank phone, a device allowing infantry to communicate with the oc ...
. The wings were of fiberglass/balsa wood sandwich construction and were built in the traditional manner using negative molds.
For approach and landing control the ASW 12 possessed a braking parachute rather than traditional spoilers or airbrakes. The system proved unreliable and a number of ASW 12 were retrofitted with a second parachute to reduce the risk of an unsuccessful landing.
Specifications
See also
References
Sailplane Directory
{{Schleicher
1960s German sailplanes
Schleicher aircraft
T-tail aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1965
Shoulder-wing aircraft