Good evening!

Here’s the next challenge…

… and it’s a photo I took myself – so it’s not to be found on the ‘net.

Thomas

Good morning!

It’s a plane constructed by a certain Marcel Leyat – possibly called “Helicat”.

The man built cars as well…

Thomas

My opinion re “obscure elitism”:

I didn’t get the impression that it was meant critically towards one or more participants in this thread – but rather the interpretation of the observation about the relatively small number of participants.

Based on my experience of the respective thread in the German “Flugzeugforum.de” I know (because I have been told repeatedly so myself after posting a particularly difficult challenge!) that a lot more people would like to participate but the level of knowledge you need to participate successfully is too high for them.

The basic dilemma, however, cannot be solved: Either you have a high number of potentially successful participants through having easy-to-identify aircraft, or you have ambitious, rare and unknown aircraft and correspondingly fewer successful participants Personally, I would rate the level here as significantly higher than in flugzeugforum.

Discussing the same problem there, somebody proposed to have separate threads: one for “beginners” (where only relatively easy-to-identify challenges should be posted) and one for “pros” without such limitation. In flugzeugforum a mod decreed that this is NOT a good idea (without actually saying why) – but perhaps here??? What are your opinions?

Regarding the rules: In flugzeugforum the thread is re-started every year (January 1) and the first post always contains the rules (including new rules or changes which have been publicly discussed in the year before but not “implemented”).

Regards from Leverkusen
Thomas

Hello everybody!

Not exactly about the abandonment of the PiperSport, but close:

In Air Britain’s photo database the following strange bird can be found:

http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1141356/

The plane looks like a Sport Cruiser (or PiperSport), but is called “AERO Experimental Diamand DA20”.

Question: What’s the matter with this machine? Is the above designation a kind of camouflage name?? I couldn’t find any clues on the net…

Any info is appreciated.

Thomas

Here’s the next challenge:

Good morning!

So – apparently it wasn’t so difficult, after all…

@aeronut2008, avion ancien: Yes indeed, the Akaflieg Stuttgart fs 29 can vary its wing area in flight by changing span (an outer wing part fits “like a glove” on an inner wing part and is mechanically extended by a corresponding wheel/lever arrangement within the cockpit). It is – to my mind – the only glider with this feature and therefore unique.

In my humble opinion you can see thís characteristic feature quite clearly in my photo and thus – after some “googling” or looking it up in a sailplane reference book – is is not so difficult to identify the construction.

The machine (D-2929/TF) flew for the first time in the 1970s and can now be found in the Deutsches Museum at München-Oberschleissheim (where I took the foto shown some weeks ago).

@ Lawrence: CORRECT, you have control!

Thomas

OK, next round.

This one should be easy….