Civil Aviation Department RG-1 Rohini

Last updated
RG-1 Rohini
RoleTraining sailplane
National origin India
ManufacturerVeegal Engines and Engineering/Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
DesignerS Ramamritham
First flight10 May 1961
Number built107

The Civil Aviation Department RG-1 Rohini (Literally means Tropic Bird) [1] is an Indian two-seat training sailplane of the 1960s. A high-winged wooden monoplane, with side-by-side seating;at least 107 were built.

Contents

Development and design

The Technical Centre of the Indian Civil Aviation Department is its research and development arm, and started design and production of sailplanes in 1950. In the early 1960s S Ramamritham designed a two-seat training sailplane, the RG-1 Rohini, the first of four prototypes flying on 10 May 1961. [2] The Rohini is a monoplane of wooden construction, with a braced high wing and a low mounted tail positioned forward of the fin. Its crew of two sit side by side in an open cockpit, while the aircraft's undercarriage consists of a single unsprung wheel under the fuselage, with skids under the nose and tail. [3] [4]

A total of 17 Rohinis were built by Veegal Engines and Engineering of Calcutta, with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited building a further 86 RG-1s by 1971. [4]

Specifications (RG-1 Rohini)

Data from Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1971-72 [4] The World's Sailplanes:Die Segelflugzeuge der Welt:Les Planeurs du Monde Volume II [5]

General characteristics

Performance

See also

Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era Slingsby T.21 Related lists List of gliders

Notes

  1. https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/rohini [ bare URL ]
  2. Taylor, John W. R. (1969). Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1969-70. London: Jane's Yearbooks. p. 541.
  3. Taylor 1971, pp. 505-506.
  4. 1 2 3 Taylor, John W. R. (1971). Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1971-72. London: Jane's Yearbooks. pp. 505–506. ISBN   0-354-00094-2.
  5. Shenstone, B.S.; K.G. Wilkinson (1963). The World's Sailplanes:Die Segelflugzeuge der Welt:Les Planeurs du Monde Volume II (in English, French, and German) (1st ed.). Zurich: Organisation Scientifique et Technique Internationale du Vol a Voile (OSTIV) and Schweizer Aero-Revue. pp. 140–141.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schleicher K 8</span> German single seat training glider, 1957

The Schleicher K 8 is a single-seat glider designed by Rudolf Kaiser and built by the Alexander Schleicher company in Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morelli M-100</span> Italian single-seat sailplane

The Aer-Pegaso M-100 was a single-seat glider designed and built in Italy from 1957.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonov A-13</span> Type of aircraft

The Antonov A-13 was a Soviet aerobatic sailplane flown in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a small, single-seat, all-metal aircraft developed from the A-11 which could optionally be fitted with that aircraft's longer-span wings. It was a mid-wing monoplane with a tadpole-like fuselage and a V-tail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fauvel AV.36</span> Single-seat French glider, 1951

The Fauvel AV.36 was a single-seat tailless glider designed in France in the 1950s by Charles Fauvel. Although the "AV" in AV.36 stands for Aile Volante, it was not a true flying wing: it featured two large fins mounted on stubby tailbooms extending back from the wing's trailing edge, and accommodated the pilot within a stubby fuselage. The aircraft was designed to be quickly disassembled for road transport, with the nose detaching, and the fins able to fold back against the trailing edge of the wing. A refined version with a slightly longer wingspan, the AV.361 was introduced in 1960.

The Schneider ES-59 Arrow is a sailplane designed and manufactured in Adelaide, South Australia in the early 1960s. The Arrow was manufactured with a one-piece wing of 13.23 metres span. It was the first Australian-built sailplane to compete in the World Gliding Championships, 1963 in Argentina. The Arrow has wood/fabric wings and tail and a wood fuselage. It has a fixed main wheel and a nose skid.

The Fauvel AV.45 was an unorthodox motor glider produced in France in the 1960s and 1970s. Like other Charles Fauvel designs, it was a tailless aircraft, in this case inspired by the work that German firms had done on producing motorised versions of his AV.36 design. The prototype of the AV.45 was an extensively modified AV.36 powered by a Nelson H-59 two-stroke engine. AV.45s have been built with a number of other engines, however, including at least one aircraft powered by a small turbojet. Falconar marketed the plans in the 1970s.

The PIK-3 was a sailplane produced in Finland in the 1950s and 60s. It was designed to be a cheap and easy-to-build aircraft to equip the country's gliding clubs as their standard single-seat machine. It was a conventional design for its day, with a high wing and conventional empennage. Construction was of wood throughout, skinned in plywood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PIK-5</span> Glider aircraft

The PIK-5 was a training glider produced in Finland in the 1940s, and 1950s, equipping the country's gliding clubs with an aircraft greater in performance than primary gliders but less than competition sailplanes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slingsby Capstan</span> Type of aircraft

The Slingsby T.49 Capstan is a British two-seat glider of the 1960s built by Slingsby Sailplanes as a replacement for their earlier Type 42 Eagle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SZD-20X Wampir II</span> Polish single-seat tail-less research glider, 1959

The SZD-20x Wampir II was a single-seat tail-less research glider designed and built in Poland from 1959.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schempp-Hirth Standard Austria</span> German single-seat aerobatic glider, 1959

The Standard Austria was a single-seat aerobatic glider that was originally designed and built in Austria from 1959 but production was moved in 1962 to Schempp-Hirth in Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scheibe Bergfalke</span> German two-seat glider, 1951

The Scheibe Bergfalke is a German glider designed by Egon Scheibe as a post-World War II development of the Akaflieg München Mü13 produced before and during the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IS-4 Jastrząb</span> Type of aircraft

The IS-4 Jastrząb was a single-seat aerobatic glider designed and built in Poland from 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IS-5 Kaczka</span> Type of aircraft

The IS-5 Kaczka was a single-seat canard research glider designed and built in Poland from 1948.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slingsby Swallow</span> British single-seat glider, 1957

The Slingsby Type 45 Swallow was designed as a club sailplane of reasonable performance and price. One of the most successful of Slingsby's gliders in sales terms, over 100 had been built when production was ended by a 1968 factory fire.

The Schneider ES-52 Kookaburra is an Australian two-seat training sailplane of the 1950s and 1960s. It was designed by Edmund Schneider, the designer of the Grunau Baby, who had emigrated to Adelaide, South Australia following the end of the Second World War.

The Vogt Lo-150 is a West German high-wing, single seat glider that was designed by Alfred Vogt and produced by the Wolf Hirth Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wassmer WA-30 Bijave</span> French two-seat glider, 1958

The Wassmer WA-30 Bijave is a French two-seat advanced training glider designed and built by Wassmer Aviation of Issoire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ikarus Košava</span> 1950s Yugoslavian sailplane

The Ikarus Košava is a two-seat sailplane designed and built in Yugoslavia in the early 1950s. It won the 1954 World Gliding Championships in the two seat category and came second in the same event two years later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonov A-11</span> Type of aircraft

The Antonov A-11 is a single-seat, high performance, all-metal sailplane built in the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. 150 were produced.

References