The Schleicher K 8 (also known as Ka-8) is a 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 ...

Rudolf Kaiser Rudolf Kaiser (10 September 1922 – 11 September 1991) was a designer of glider (sailplane), gliders who worked for Alexander Schleicher GmbH & Co. The designs of Rudolf Kaiser have proven themselves for over 50 years all over the world. His d ...

and built by the Alexander Schleicher company of

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Design and development

The K 8 was derived from the earlier Ka 6 design as a simple single-place sailplane with air brakes using construction techniques similar to the

Schleicher K 7 The Schleicher K7 Rhönadler is a West German high-wing, two-seat, glider that was designed by Rudolf Kaiser and produced by Alexander Schleicher GmbH & Co. Often referred to as the ''Ka-7'' or ''K-7'', the US Federal Aviation Administration t ...

, simplified for amateur construction from kits. Emphasis was on rugged construction, good climbing ability in thermals and good handling characteristics. The prototype K 8 made its first flight in November 1957 and over 1,100 were built in three main versions. The original K 8 had a very small canopy. Side windows for improved visibility were introduced in the next version, and the K 8B, by far the most numerous variant, has a larger one-piece blown Plexiglas canopy. The K 8C features a longer nose, larger main wheel located ahead of the center of gravity and deletion of the larger wooden nose skid resulting in a roomier cockpit. The cantilever high wings are single-spar structures of pine and plywood, with a plywood leading edge torsion box and fabric covering aft of the spar; the forward sweep is 1° 18' and dihedral is 3°. There are Schempp-Hirth air brakes in the upper and lower surfaces and the wooden ailerons are plywood covered. The cantilever tail unit is of similar construction to the wings, with ply-covered fixed surfaces and fabric-covered

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...

and elevators, and a

trim tab Trim tabs are small surfaces connected to the trailing edge of a larger control surface on a boat or aircraft, used to control the trim of the controls, i.e. to counteract hydro- or aerodynamic forces and stabilise the boat or aircraft in a pa ...

in the elevator is an optional fitting. The fuselage is a welded steel-tube structure, with fabric covering over spruce longerons and a

glass fibre Glass fiber ( or glass fibre) is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass. Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the inventio ...

nose cone. There is a non-retractable and unsprung monowheel, with optional brake, and a nose skid mounted on rubber blocks in front of it, plus a steel skid at the tail.

Operational history

Karl Striedieck of the United States made a 767 km / 476.6 mile ridge flight in a K 8B to establish a world out-and-return record in 1968.

Motor glider variants

A motor glider conversion of the K 8B was developed by LVD (the Flying Training School of the Detmold Aero Club) similar to their conversion of a Scheibe Bergfalke IV known as the BF IV-BIMO, in which a Lloyd LS-400 piston engine mounted in the fuselage drives a pair of small two-blade

pusher propeller In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in nor ...

s rotating within cutouts in each wing near the trailing edge. Another motorglider conversion was used by "Vestjysk Svæveflyveklub" in

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: it had a small

Wankel rotary engine The Wankel engine (, ) is a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into rotating motion. It was invented by German engineer Felix Wankel, and designed by German engineer Hanns-Dieter Paschke. T ...

mounted in a

nacelle A nacelle ( ) is a "streamlined body, sized according to what it contains", such as an engine, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. When attached by a pylon entirely outside the airframe, it is sometimes called a pod, in which case it is attached ...

on an aluminium stick above the main spar. The engine was started with a

recoil start Rope start (also called pull start or ''rewind start'') is a method of starting an internal combustion engine, usually on small machines, such as lawn mowers, chainsaws, ultralight aircraft, small outboard motors and portable engine-generators. A ...

er like a

lawn mower A lawn mower (also known as a mower, grass cutter or lawnmower) is a device utilizing one or more revolving blades (or a reel) to cut a grass surface to an even height. The height of the cut grass may be fixed by the design of the mower, but g ...

. The high RPM of the device made it extremely unpopular: the propeller tips created a permanent

sonic boom A sonic boom is a sound associated with shock waves created when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding similar to an explosion or a thunderclap to t ...

, that made the plane extremely noisy. The harassed citizens of

Esbjerg Esbjerg (, ) is a seaport town and seat of Esbjerg Municipality on the west coast of the Jutland peninsula in southwest Denmark. By road, it is west of Kolding and southwest of Aarhus. With an urban population of 71,698 (1 January 2022)

nicknamed the plane 'the flying circular saw' and the engine was removed.

Specifications (K 8B)

Notes

References

* *

External links

Schleicher Web SiteSailplane directory
Dead Link

Another site with Production History. {{Schleicher 1950s German sailplanes Schleicher aircraft High-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1957