As another aside from the serious side of Boomerangology 😎 there are many different types. The familiar returning kind is one but most are of a non-returning kind and are just throwing sticks.

Wooden rocks if you will.

🙂

The non-returning ones are a bit more than sticks though in design, they have the same basic “Boomerang” shape, and are thrown much the same way, but the aerofoil/blade is only used to ensure a straight line path from the thrower, rather than to create lift and turn.

Regards

Mark Pilkington

Its not a Dagling! The Dagling has a different rear fuselarge. Theirs only one complete Dagling left in the Uk.

Dave

The Australian Gliding Museum has a German Zogling (Northrup) Primary Glider which I understand is a direct cousin of the Dagling.

Apparantly the “Northrup” reference relates to drawings available from American pre-war magazines? Apparantly there was plans for a “Northrup” primary glider in Popular Mechanics in 1938.

From the NEAM website http://www.neam.co.uk/grasshopper.html

Early Gliding in Britain
The British Gliding association was founded in 1929, and was heavily influenced by Deutschland in its early days.
In Deutschland, Alexander Lippisch had designed the Zögling, which became the standard primary glider (i.e. a simple one-seat glider).

In Britain plans of the Zögling were actually available at the cost of £1 10s to enable the type to be built at home by glider enthusiasts.

A British version was built in 1930 by R.F. Dagnall, head of the RFD company which built balloons and airships. This glider became known as a Dagling – 28 were built and all similar gliders built in Britain were also given this name.

Demand for this type of primary glider grew, and it was put back into production in 1934 by Slingsbys as the T.2 Primary. These were used by civilian gliding clubs, but on the outbreak of war most were taken over by the RAF for use by Air Training Corps squadrons.

Apparantly the Dagling led to the Slingsby T.2 and T.3 Dagling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_T.3_Dagling

Design and development
During the 1920s Alexander Lippisch designed a training glider with very low performance to introduce pilots gradually to full-blown gliding. The result was a glider with a very simple structure of an open framework fuselage, with short wings attached by cables to a king post and the base of the fuselage. Lippisch’s original design had an all-wood fuselage and was called “Zögling”, but Wolf Hirth instigated a redesign of the fuselage using steel tubes.

History
The plans for the modified Zögling made their way via the USA to the London Gliding Club and Mr. R.F. Dagnall and the RFD company. Production by RFD lasted until 1931, and in 1933 Fred Slingsby took over building the “Dagling”. Production continued up to the outbreak of WWII. The Primary should not be confused with the T.38 Grasshopper which was produced for the Air Training Corps in the 1950s.

So it would seem the “Hirth” Zogling, the “Northrup” plans from the USA and the example built in Australia, the British Dagling and the Slingsby T.2 and T.3 may all be very similar primary gliders derived from the same earlier wooden framed Zogling?

Interestingly the early Zogling has a timber tail rather than the “Hirth” pipe tail, evolved into its designer Alexander Lippisch’s later training glider the Schulgleiter 38, which became the British EoN, all a very complex family relationship.

Regards

Mark Pilkington

I know Slartibartfast designed Norway (one of his favourites), but Finland?

Thanks Mark……its a total education coming on to this forum.

cheers Baz

Baz,

The coastline work on Finland in the area of Turko bears great resemblence to his later coastline work on Norway in the Oslo area, of course he had’nt as yet perfected fjords when working on the much earlier Finland design.

Of course he is also suspected of at least helping on the coastline of the adjoining Sweden, and both Finland and Sweden were completed well before Norway was added as his final crowning coastline work, fjords and all, leaving his best and favourite work till last.

And if Finland had remained in the Tasman Sea, Stockholm would have been a simple 2 span bridge away from St Petersburg!

smiles

Mark Pilkington

As I recall that was because he had not yet thrown it. Once this error had been pointed out I believe he had no further problems.

There have always been two types of boomerangs, returning and non-returning, obviously the non-returning are the first examples of cruise missile type aerial weapon delivery, designed for one way attacks as used by modern air forces, where as the returning boomerang is the traditional re-useable vehicle more commonly used in early Air Forces.

The Boomerang, the oldest flying device, for its age, in the world!

smiles

Mark Pilkington

.
or perhaps the creation of 3 squadrons of Boomerangs over 40,000 years ago as the worlds first independant air force of any size?

smiles

Mark Pilkington

“as I would say that the argument…… here is based on what is officially recognised and what is recorded on bits of paper “

I would think then that size does’nt matter nor does months or years of planning or conjecture, but what does matter is the dates recorded on the bits of paper, and if the date is three weeks earlier in Finland accept it as fact and stop the arguing.

You should have taken the “oldest independent Air Force for its size in the world” title while it was on offer, but I’m afraid I claimed it for the RAAF earlier.

Perhaps you could settle for the “oldest independent Air Force of a slightly larger size in the world” before someone like the USAF takes that one?

smiles

Mark Pilkington

Any ideas on these part no’s from a flat panel, camouflaged dark earth/dark green and with a green interior – but darker than the usual RAF interior green. A stamp AUS 204 in a circle suggests Australian. Other numbers are KA 6481 followed by FOG then 060403FEE.

From your list, that was about the only possibility I came up with. Bit of a mystery how an item from a Wackett that is quite clearly ex-stores and “new” with a stores label (totally faded!) ends up in UK, though!

While the “AUS” is an abbreviation often used to denote Australia I havent seen it in use as an inspection or manufacturer stamp on any historic parts.

“AUS” was also used by the US Army during WW2, but not neccessarily for aircraft parts inspection

The draft forces of the U.S. Army were all Army of the United States personnel and were annotated by the abbreviation “AUS” in front of their service numbers.

Despite the “06” prefix, the “060403” as a part number overall is not in the form used by CAC, which use the type number ie “06” seperated by a “-” and then followed by a 5 digit part number, with the first two digits defining the group or area of airframe.

ie 06-24XXX would be a CAC Wackett part from the rudder.

While some small CAC parts delete the “-” due to space, most cast, stamped or painted numbers retain it.

Perhaps you could post a pic of the panel?

regards

Mark Pilkington