Schleicher K 10
The Schleicher K 10 is a Standard class competition glider, designed by Rudolf Kaiser and built in Germany in 1963. Only a few were produced.
Design and development
The K 10 is a cantilever shoulder wing glider with a single spar wing built from pine and plywood. Its covering is mostly [aircraft aircraft fabric covering|fabric covering|fabric] but glass fibre is used in places where the surface has double curvature. Airfoils by Professor Franz Wortmann replaced the NACA 63 series profiles of the successful Schleicher Ka 6 with the intention of producing higher speeds. The leading edge is straight and unswept, but a swept trailing edge produces a forward sweep at quarter chord of 1.2°. There is 3° of dihedral. The taper increases slightly on the outer wing panels, where ply covered ailerons are hinged on the upper wing surfaces. Schempp-Hirth airbrakes are fitted inboard.Its fuselage is a ply shell formed around wooden bulkheads and stringers and again GRP is used for areas with double curvature. The cockpit is enclosed by a moulded Perspex canopy. The tail surfaces are straight tapered and built in the same way as the wings. It has all-moving elevators mounted on the fin at the top of the fuselage, far enough forward that only a small cut out was required for movement of the fabric covered rudder, which extends down to the keel. The K 10 has a fixed, semi-recessed monowheel undercarriage assisted by a tail skid.
The K 10 made its first flight in August 1963. The Wortmann profiles did improve high speed performance but the K 10 lost the excellent low-speed handling characteristics of the Ka 6, so only twelve K 10s were built and Kaiser's attention turned to producing an improved Ka 6, the Ka 6E, which adopted the all-moving tailplane of the K 10 but used the earlier NACA airfoils. Three K 10s remained on the German civil aircraft register in 2010. A Swiss registered K 10 crashed fatally in 1999.