Thinking Inside the Box. Many people are attracted to the sports of soaring by the noble idea of flying in a birdlike manner. Staying aloft on silent wings and sharing the sky with hawks and eagles is indeed magical. Eventually, just remaining air borne is not enough and most pilots learn the art of cross-country flight. Leaving the local area is scary; especially in a lower performance sailplane and soon the benefit of high glide ratios becomes obvious. Most clubs and commercial glider ports do not have high performance sailplanes available. The aspiring cross-country pilot eventually makes the decision to buy a sailplane. The research begins. A fascination with performance sets in and soon many conversations are dominated by comparisons of gliders. What ship gives the most bang for the buck? Is a Discus okay for a low time pilot? Is it worth paying extra for automatic control hookups and what make has the highest resale value? After I buy the aircraft, how do I improve it? The list goes on and on and on. My club mate John has set several National and one Worlds Record. John is an eternal optimizer and spends much of his time making sure the glider is perfect by adding small features (special clips to keep the safety harness out of the way and available for easy hookup) to make his flying more efficient. Soon after John received his new Discus 2a he spent hours adding his widgets to the sailplane. What seemed inconceivable is how he spent even more time making adaptations to the trailer. He spent hours adding special clips for holding a wing stand to the dolly ramp. The strap holding the fuselage to the dolly was removed and turned around so the buckle can be accessed from the left side of fuselage. Hinges were lubricated and seals trimmed for a closer fit. He modified the wiring harness protecting it from the harsh weather and excessive salt use on roads here in New England. As an entry level cross country pilot obsessed with sailplane technology I believed his manic trailer work was the manifestation of some deeply rooted psychological flaw. Its just a box with wheels or so I thought. The trailer or box as it is often called is where most sailplanes are stored. The wings and tail come off and the entire aircraft fits into a trailer approximately four feet high, four feet wide and thirty feet long. The trailers are enclosed to keep rain, sun and dirt off the glider. A good trailer will cost upwards of $12,000, which is a good percentage of the cost of a new glider. To many pilots buying new, most of the available money goes into buying the glider and the trailer is an afterthought. Many used gliders come with a trailer but the focus is on the fiberglass mistress complete with winglets, automatic control hookups, the latest glide computer and vario. Waiting for my PW-5 to arrive from Poland gave me a few months to find a trailer since I passed on buying a brand new custom Avionic trailer for $9,000. An older Knauff design (a square thing made from steel tubes covered with aluminum corrugated roofing) was located in Wortsboro, New York which was snapped up for $1,500 saving me $7,500. Most trailers hold the fuselage with a dolly supporting the weight in some sort of semi-rigid “sling” under the cockpit and in front of the main gear. With gear retracted the fuselage sits on the dolly and the tailwheel so it can be easily rolled into and out of the trailer. The tailwheel is strapped into a divot in the floor and the nose is held in place by another cup referred to as the nose catcher. The arrangement is very secure and easy to use. The PW-5 has fixed gear presenting certain storage problems I had thought of but never really understood. The CG of the PW is behind the main wheel when the wings are removed hence it does
not want to stay on the dolly. It wants to lift the nose, separate from the dolly and fall over. Getting the ship in and out of the box is precarious and awkward at best. A series of lift struts, small ramps and hold down straps overcome this issue but make a Rube Goldberg machine look efficient. Flying the glider became a chore and not a joyful experience due to the hassles of getting the ship out of the box. The fix was to build a lifting dolly to pick up the fuse getting the main gear off the ground. One problem solved creating another; the trailer was now too short to clear the canopy and the glider no longer fit. Raising the roof six inches would require residing the entire trailer, adding significant weight, involve jigging to keep the shape and a lot of welding. A friend suggested just raising the center and making the flat roof into a gambrel style. The canopy would clear and only 20% of the tubes needed cutting and the reroofing job would require less money and time then lifting the entire roof. It worked and while we were adding things the hold down strap buckle was moved to the left side of the dolly and we added a convenient place for the wing stand, moved the stab support and enlarged a storage area access door. The glider rolls into and out of the trailer and can go from the box into the air in fifteen minutes. Rube has back his place as the king of inefficiency and I enjoy assembling the ship. Tony, an aspiring cross country pilot recently asked my advice about several gliders he was considering for purchase. My only reply was to find the best trailer and take whatever was inside. Experience has shown it takes more then just a nice glider to have fun in soaring. You need to think about the box. Any comments or questions please feel free to contact me at Redpoint@sover.net. Fly safe and keep the dirty side down.