Disk aircraft construction

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Disc SF-25 Falcon

The Scheibe-Flugzeugbau GmbH from Dachau was a manufacturer of powered aircraft , powered gliders , gliders and ultralight aircraft .

history

Before the Second World War, Dipl.-Ing. Egon Scheibe, the specialist aeronautical group at the Technical University of Munich . At this time the two-seater Mü 10 "Milan" and the Mü 13 , with which Kurt Schmidt won the 1936 Rhön competition, were created. The fuselage construction was typical in a broken steel tube construction, which was also retained in the following models Mü 15 and Mü 17 .

On October 30, 1951, Scheibe founded the company Scheibe-Flugzeugbau GmbH. Production began on November 15, 1951 with the "Mü 13 E". This was the beginning of the legendary "Bergfalken" series, which was based on the original "Mü 13 Atalante" from 1936. It received its first type certificate in the Federal Republic of Germany on April 20, 1952. For the future of the young company, Egon Scheibe (born on September 28, 1908 in Munich) saw better development opportunities at a larger airfield. For example, it was possible to rent rooms at Munich-Riem Airport and even build a wooden hall there. From then on, surfaces and hulls were built in Dachau, painting and final assembly took place mainly in Munich-Riem. Both because of the resulting higher wage costs and for other economic reasons, E. Scheibe was not entirely satisfied with this solution. That is why the Munich-Riem branch was closed after only four years. At the beginning of the 1960s, Scheibe had firmly established itself on the German market with a few hundred mountain falcons, sparrows and high-performance migratory birds.

A disc of Zugvogel III , exhibited in the German Glider Museum

In the 1970s, Scheibe specialized entirely in falcons (type SF 25 ), i. H. Motor sailors with seats next to each other in a composite construction. The motorization increased gradually from 45 to 60, 80 and finally optionally up to 100 HP. With the 100 HP Rotax engine, the Falke is well suited for towing gliders , otherwise it is overpowered because of the "slow" cell. The originally rigid central wheel with balloon tires received a suspension from 1976. A decade later they switched to a bipod undercarriage , which, however, does not have the almost limitless crosswind capability of the central wheel. A total of over 1200 falcons are said to have been built, almost all of which fly in the clubs of Central Europe. They are robust, good-natured and economical light-engine aircraft that are also capable of sailing in good thermals. The soaring performance does not give rise to any joy. This is different with the Tandem-Falken SF 28 A , a version with seats one behind the other, one meter more wingspan and variable pitch propeller with sail position. The tandem falcon sails considerably better, but this feature was hardly in demand, so that the type was discontinued after a few years of construction at the end of the 1970s.

Disk did not have any success with aircraft construction in GfK . The two-seater SF 34 came too late in 1979 and had no chance against the industrial Astir production at Grob . Later, the plastic motor glider SF-36 fared similarly in comparison to competitor G109 from Grob and the Dimona , which is still manufactured today , so that Scheibe remained completely dependent on the manufacture of the Falken. As the motor glider market became saturated and as the cost of artisanal production rose, the economic air for the company became increasingly thin. In addition, there were succession problems after Egon Scheibe died of old age "in his boots".

In 2006 production in Dachau was stopped and the company was dissolved. Since then, the company Scheibe Aircraft GmbH in Heubach , a company of the aviation company Sammet , has been the prototype supervisor of the Scheibe gliders and motor gliders in mixed construction . Production of a modified version of the SF 25 C has now started in Heubach, so that the falcon is still brand new for sworn enthusiasts. All spare parts are also available. At the Aero 2009 in Friedrichshafen, Scheibe Aircraft from Heubach presented a further modified version of the Falken with increased payload, optionally also equipped with the turbo-charged, 115 hp Rotax 914 drive. In 2010, Scheibe Aircraft also took over the rights and type support for SF-23 "Sperling", SF-34 "Delphin" (= Centrair "Alliance 34") and SF-36 .

Products

a tandem falcon in faience
Disc SF-34B dolphin

The following aircraft types were built:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Virtual Aviation Museum ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.luftfahrtmuseum.com archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. website
  2. ↑ LBA_Chronik.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.lba.de   , Chronicle of the Federal Aviation Office 3.5 MB PDF file

literature

  • Gerd Zipper: Falkenhorst. The history of the disk planes . Weishaupt, 1999, ISBN 3-7059-0059-5 .

Web links

Commons : Disk aircraft construction  - collection of images, videos and audio files