Project: "Glasair RG"
The designer and his wife have built the award-winning kit plane Glasair I RG 'The Pink Baron' in Switzerland in the time from April 1987 until October 1989 accumulating 4000 building hours. Jurg Sommerauer, together with a pilot friend, has then flown the airplane in August 1991 from Zuerich, Switzerland to Ogden, Utah. Thereafter the Pink Baron was frequently part of the static display at Oshkosh, Sun 'n Fun, Arlington, Phoenix 500, and many other air shows and fly-ins throughout the USA.
Project: "S10 gsm"
The designer was in charge as project director for R & D, developing a low cost aerial multi-purpose sensor platform based on an existing advanced motor glider, Stemme S-10. The prototype was displayed at the air show 1989 in Le Bourget, and an article was published in the German aviation magazine 'Aerocurier' by the German test pilot Dieter Thomas, as shown below.
The platform was intended to be setup for realtime IR remote sensing, remote chemical monitoring, photographic imagery, for which dedicated underwing pods were designed. The airplane was able to loiter for more than 12 hours, over noise sensitive areas at low or high altitude depending on the specific mission. Applications: Forest fireprevention, Energy loss monitoring of buildings, drug intercepting, just to mention a few.
These pictures show ing image sequence of:
the platform on mission, various remote sensor pods,
the remote sensing instrument & navigation panel,
the emergency propulsion pod
Project: "Stingray"
The designer was contracted by a Swiss Aerospace company in November 1992, to develop and construct a prototype wing for a test bed with a required stall speed of only 19 mph, with a low weight.
Slats mounted on the wing section 41m 28s
complete 40 ft wing in three sections (slats and flaperons not showing)
The wing design features are:
- wing span of 40 ft
- airfoil close to Goettingen 319
- a special flaperon design for high CL max
- full span slats design
- flaperons
- wing weight was below 125 lb.
The project was successfully accomplished April 1993.