Akaflieg Munich

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Akaflieg Munich
The Akaflieg Munich logo
Surname Akaflieg Munich eV
Founded 1924
Place of foundation Munich
Association headquarters Arcisstrasse 21
80333 Munich
Members approx. 40 (as of 2018)
Homepage akaflieg.vo.tu-muenchen.de

The Akaflieg München eV is a student group at the Munich universities, which deals with the design, construction and flying of gliders and powered aircraft. It belongs to the ten academic aviation groups in Germany and is a member of Idaflieg . In 2018 around 40 students were actively working on new projects and during flight operations.

history

Foundation and first years

Tower on Gabelsbergerstrasse

In June 1924, employees and professors at the Technical University of Munich called on students to found an "academic flying group". One year after this call, the association had over 300 members. In 1925, the "Vogel Roch" designed by Roderich Fick was created at a boatyard on Lake Ammersee. At the same time, the association moved into rooms in the Thiersch Tower , the university's landmark at the time. The flight operations took place in Prien am Chiemsee .

Akaflieg Munich was, in addition to the aviation groups from Aachen , Berlin , Braunschweig, Gdansk , Darmstadt, Dresden, Hanover, Koethen and Stuttgart, a founding member of the interest group of the Academic Aviation Groups (Idaflieg).

In the years that followed, Germany turned to powered flight, so that in 1933 the first powered aircraft, the Mü 8 , was completed. But there were constant further developments in gliding too, culminating in the prototypes Mü 10 "Milan" and Mü 13 "Merlin" designed by Egon Scheibe before the Second World War . With the two trend-setting constructions with cantilevered trapezoidal wings made of wood and a fabric-covered tubular steel fuselage , Egon Scheibe founded the Munich school and laid the foundation for the later Scheiben aircraft construction , which built a successful training aircraft with the Bergfalken , a two-seater version of the "Merlin" .

Second World War

Akaflieg continued to exist in the time of National Socialism as a flight technology specialist group (FFG) at the TH Munich at the German Aviation Research Institute (DVL) . Because while glider clubs were incorporated into the paramilitary National Socialist Aviation Corps , this did not happen with research groups. The group received state funds from the Reich Aviation Ministry , which led to increased construction activity. Among them, projects of importance to the war effort were conveyed to Akaflieg, which protected the students from war measures. This is how the fuselage of a measuring and test glider, known internally as the “measuring crow” , was created under the name Mü 18 , a joint project with the FFG Göttingen, the FFG Danzig and the Flugtechnischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft (FAG) Chemnitz. In cooperation with the FFG Darmstadt, the DM-1 was developed as a continuation of the D-33 . This test glider was to become the basis for the new supersonic interceptor in delta wing design Lippisch P.13a through flight tests . At the end of the war, the DM-1 was confiscated and taken to the USA for wind tunnel tests, where it brought important findings for delta-wing aircraft projects such as the Convair XF-92 .

After 1945

Since the construction and maintenance of aircraft was prohibited by the occupying powers, both flight operations and research were not possible for Akaflieg Munich in the first years after the war. However, in 1945 the students came together again under the name “Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Fluid Mechanik ” and, among other things, constructed a rigid sail for a boat on the Chiemsee. In 1951, when the aviation ban in Germany was relaxed, the students took the Mü 10 "Milan" from the Deutsches Museum , where it had survived the war without damage, and began again with research and flight operations. In the tradition of the Munich School , the first project after the war was the Mü 22 with its characteristic V-tail unit .

Akaflieg Mü 30 "Schlacro"

In 1964 Akaflieg Munich had to vacate the Prien airfield on the Chiemsee and finally began flight operations in 1968 at the new Königsdorf gliding center .

With the advent of fiber composite construction in sailplane construction, the projects became more technically demanding, expensive and lengthy. For example , this was demonstrated by the almost ten-year construction period of the Mü 27 , the heaviest glider in the world with a take-off weight of around 900 kg. An even more complex project was started by the group in the mid-1980s with the construction of the Mü 30 "Schlacro" . The mixture of artificial and towing aircraft had its first flight in 2000 and, after intensive flight tests and modifications, was not finally approved for traffic until the end of 2011.

Akaflieg Munich today

Akaflieg Mü 31

Akaflieg Munich has a fiber composite workshop and a design office in the building of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Technical University of Munich in Garching near Munich and a workshop in the Munich University of Applied Sciences . In addition to their mostly technical studies, the students there work at least 300 hours a year on the maintenance of the aircraft fleet and the construction of new prototypes.

Mü 31 under construction, August 2014

With the Mü 31 , glider of the 15m FAI racing class was created . Among other things, an optimized fuselage-wing transition is being tested on the shoulder-wing aircraft.

In December 2013, the follow-up project Mü 32 "Reissmeister" was established, a single-seat glider aerobatic, which is in the tradition of the Mü 28 with the intended automatic flap mechanism, but should have improved tear-off properties for torn and bumped figures.

The flight operations take place together with five other clubs south of Munich in the Königsdorf gliding center. Here every student has the opportunity to get a license and fly prototypes like the Mü 22 .

Prototypes

The prototypes of Akaflieg Munich are designated with the prefix Mü for Munich and the design number. The projects DM-1 to DM-4 are an exception. DM stands for Darmstadt-Munich , as the D-33 project of the FFG Darmstadt was continued after its workshop was destroyed in cooperation with the FFG Munich.

Gliders and gliders

Motor sailer

Powered aircraft

Unrealized projects

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ About us. In: akaflieg.vo.tu-muenchen.de. Akaflieg Munich, accessed February 2, 2018 .
  2. ^ Carsten Karge: Report Historical Archive . In: Akademische Fliegergruppe (Ed.): Annual Report 2013/2014 . Berlin 2015, DNB  013347667 , p. 52-54 .
  3. ^ Darmstadt-Munich 1 in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum , accessed on June 14, 2012
  4. ↑ The Mü 10 "Milan" on the website of the Deutsches Museum
  5. ^ History of the Königsdorf Gliding Center , accessed on June 14, 2012
  6. ^ The Mü 27 on the website of the Deutsches Museum , accessed on June 14, 2012
  7. ↑ Youtube - Mü 30 Schlacro Interview ILA 2010 (June 11, 2011), accessed on June 14, 2012
  8. ↑ Mü 30 “Schlacro” on the Akaflieg Munich homepage , accessed on June 14, 2012
  9. ↑ Mü 31 on the Akaflieg Munich homepage , accessed on June 14, 2012
  10. ↑ [1] , accessed on August 27, 2014

literature

  • Frank-Dieter Lemke, Rolf Jacob: Research - Build - Fly The Academic Fliegergruppen (Akaflieg) in Germany until 1945. Part 1. In: Flieger Revue extra, 29th issue, June 2010, pp. 18–31.

Web links

Commons : Akaflieg München  - Collection of images, videos and audio files