Wladimir Talanczuk

Last updated
Wladimir Talanczuk
Born
Ukraine, USSR
Nationality Ukrainian - Canadian
Education Institute for Aviation Specialists, Poland
OccupationEngineer
Engineering career
Institutions AeroKlub Wrocław
Birdman Enterprises
Projects Birdman WT-11 Chinook
Significant advance Ultralight aircraft
Hang gliders
Birdman Chinook 2S Birdman Chinook 2S C-IBPE 0004.jpeg
Birdman Chinook 2S
Birdman Chinook 2S Birdman Chinook 2S C-IBPE 0003.jpeg
Birdman Chinook 2S

Wladimir Talanczuk (also known by his anglicized name Vladimir Talanczuk) is a Ukrainian- born aeronautical engineer known for his hang glider and ultralight aircraft designs. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Ukraine Sovereign state in Eastern Europe

Ukraine, sometimes called the Ukraine, is a country in Eastern Europe. Excluding Crimea, Ukraine has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Kiev. Ukrainian is the official language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religions in the country are Eastern Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism. Ukraine is currently in a territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2 (233,062 sq mi), making it the largest country entirely within Europe and the 46th largest country in the world.

Hang gliding air sport or recreational activity

Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised foot-launched heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered with synthetic sailcloth to form a wing. Typically the pilot is in a harness suspended from the airframe, and controls the aircraft by shifting body weight in opposition to a control frame.

Contents

Career

Talanczuk graduated from the Polish Institute for Aviation Specialists in 1970 as an aeronautical engineer and immediately embarked upon a career as a designer of hang gliders and light aircraft. He worked with Tadensca Dobczynski, the Polish amateur aircraft builder, assisting in the design and construction of more than thirty Dobczynski designs. [1]

Poland Republic in Central Europe

Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country located in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, covering an area of 312,696 square kilometres (120,733 sq mi), and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With a population of approximately 38.5 million people, Poland is the sixth most populous member state of the European Union. Poland's capital and largest metropolis is Warsaw. Other major cities include Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin.

Talanczuk qualified as a light aircraft pilot, logging 1200 hours of flight time. In 1972 he began to seriously devote his time to hang gliding. While working for the AeroKlub Wrocław he designed his Mars series of hang gliders, including the WT-6 Mars-S, WT-7 Mars-2S and WT-8 Mars-Agat. Throughout 1979 he was a member of the Polish National Hang Gliding Team and competed in the World Hang Gliding Championships at Grenoble, France, flying a Mars hang glider of his own design. The hang glider he flew at that event was at that time the largest wingspan hang glider flown. [1] [2] [3]

Grenoble Prefecture and commune in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France

Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère and is an important European scientific centre. The city advertises itself as the "Capital of the Alps", due to its size and its proximity to the mountains.

France Republic with mainland in Europe and numerous oversea territories

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

Wingspan distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip of an airplane or an animal (insect, bird, bat)

The wingspan of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777-200 has a wingspan of 60.93 metres, and a wandering albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of 3.63 metres, the official record for a living bird. The term wingspan, more technically extent, is also used for other winged animals such as pterosaurs, bats, insects, etc., and other fixed-wing aircraft such as ornithopters. In humans, the term wingspan also refers to the arm span, which is distance between the length from one end of an individual's arms to the other when raised parallel to the ground at shoulder height at a 90º angle. Former professional basketball player Manute Bol stands at 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) and owns one of the largest wingspans at 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m).

Talanczuk also served as a consultant to the Polish National Aero Club in the fields of accident investigation and analysis. He designed several light aircraft and completed a single-seat gyroplane during his time in Poland. [1]

He emigrated to Canada in 1981 and began working for hang glider and ultralight aircraft manufacturer Birdman Enterprises, of Edmonton, Alberta shortly after his arrival, filling the position of Chief Engineer and Designer. [1] [4]

Canada Country in North America

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Canada's southern border with the United States, stretching some 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world's longest bi-national land border. Its capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land area being dominated by forest and tundra. Consequently, its population is highly urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, with 70% of citizens residing within 100 kilometres (62 mi) of the southern border. Canada's climate varies widely across its vast area, ranging from arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons.

Birdman Enterprises

This article is about the Canadian ultralight manufacturer. For the unrelated US ultralight manufacturer, see Birdman Aircraft

Edmonton Provincial capital city in Alberta, Canada

Edmonton is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city anchors the north end of what Statistics Canada defines as the "Calgary–Edmonton Corridor".

Talanczuk's first project at Birdman was the design of a new ultralight aircraft to replace the Birdman Atlas in production. The company's stated design goals for the aircraft were: good flying characteristics, simplicity of construction and maximization of aesthetics. [1] [5]

The Birdman Atlas is a single-seat, high wing, single engine in pusher configuration, ultralight aircraft that was based upon the Eipper Quicksilver design.

Designer Talanczuk stated his own additional project intentions:

Talanczuk chose an airfoil that was created by Dr Dave Marsden at the University of Alberta, the UA 80/1. The aircraft was his eleventh design and was designated the WT-11 Chinook, although in 1987 the company redesignated it 1S (for 1 seat) to conform to their own nomenclature. [4] [5]

Birdman President Terry Jones assessed the results of the WT-11 design in a press release, saying: [5]

The WT-11 received both critical acclaim and commercial success. The single seat WT-11 was followed by Talanczuk's two-seat trainer version which Birdman designated as the Chinook 2S (2 seater). A total of over 700 WT-11s and 2S Chinooks were completed before Birdman Enterprises went out of business in late 1987. [6]

Talanczuk's Chinook design was resurrected in 1989, when it was redesigned by Aircraft Sales and Parts President Brent Holomis as the ASAP Chinook 2 Plus, an Advanced Ultralight Aeroplane that remains in production today. [7] [8] [9] [10]

Aircraft

Summary of aircraft designed by Wladimir Talanczuk
Model nameFirst flightNumber builtType
WT-1
WT-2
WT-3
WT-4
WT-5
WT-6 Mars-S Single-place hang glider
WT-7 Mars-2S Single-place hang glider
WT-8 Mars-Agat 8 built by 1979 [2] Single-place hang glider
WT-9
WT-10
Chinook WT-11 1982 700 WT-11 and 2SSingle-place ultralight aircraft
Chinook 2S 1984 700 WT-11 and 2STwo-place ultralight aircraft

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jones, Terry: About The Designer - Vladimir Talanczuk - Trained in The European Tradition. Birdman Enterprises, 1984.
  2. 1 2 3 Taylor, John WR, Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1979-80 page 599, Janes Publishing Limited.
  3. 1 2 Taylor, John WR, Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1980-81 page 597, Janes Publishing Limited.
  4. 1 2 3 Taylor, John WR, Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1987-88 page 544, Janes Publishing Limited.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Jones, Terry: Birdman WT-11 Chinook - Design Philosophy - A Third-Generation Ultralight. Birdman Enterprises, 1984.
  6. ↑ Cliche, Andre: Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide 8th Edition, page E-9. Cybair Limited Publishing, 2001. ISBN   0-9680628-1-4
  7. ↑ Aircraft Sales and Parts (2002). "ASAP History" . Retrieved 2009-08-10.
  8. ↑ Transport Canada (May 2009). "Listing of Models Eligible to be Registered as Advanced Ultra-Light Aeroplanes (AULA)" . Retrieved 2009-08-05.
  9. ↑ Johnson, Dan (January 2008). "Lightplane Offerings From Canada" . Retrieved 2009-08-12.
  10. ↑ Hunt, Adam: Flying the ASAP Chinook Plus 2 with Ottawa's Capital Air Sports. Canadian Owners and Pilots Association COPA Flight, May 2002.
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