| Mg 23 | |
|---|---|
| Musger Mg 23 (OE-0425) at the Aviaticum museum | |
| Role | Single seat high performance sailplane |
| National origin | Austria |
| Manufacturer | Josef Oberlerchner Holzindustrie, Spittal an der Drau |
| Designer | Erwin Musger |
| First flight | 25 June 1955 (Mg 23 prototype) |
| Number built | 94 by March 1966, including prototype |
The Oberlerchner Mg 23 is a single seat, all wood, high performance sailplane. It was built and first flown in Austria in 1955, though it did not go into production until the early 1960s when a total of 94 were built.
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The Mg 23, an Erwin Musger design often known as the Musger Mg 23, was an all wood shoulder wing aircraft. Its wing had a straight leading edge, a constant chord inner section with taper outboard and 2.5° of dihedral. The wing tips have small tip fences. It was built around a single wooden spar and wood covered apart from the ailerons, which were fabric covered. Wooden Schempp-Hirth spoilers were fitted. The tail surfaces were fabric covered, the tailplane narrow in chord and straight tapered with a Flettner tab on the starboard elevator. One change between the prototype Mg 23 and the production Mg 23 SL was that the size of the fin and rudder was increased; on the SL the fin was straight edged apart from a curved fuselage fillet but the trailing edge of the wide, deep rudder was rounded.[1]
The fuselage was an oval section wooden semi-monocoque, tapering to the rear. On the production SL the fuselage line over the wings merged into a forward sliding canopy, which was longer than that of the prototype. The Mg 23 SL had a fixed monowheel undercarriage, with both integral nose and tail skids.[1]
The Mg 23 prototype flew on 25 June 1955, flight testing leading to the increase in vertical tail size and a modified canopy on the production aircraft, the first of which first flew on 1 April 1962.[1]
93 Mg 23 SL had been built by March 1966.[1] In mid-2010, 11 Mg 23s were on the civil registers of European countries, 9 in Austria, 1 in Switzerland and 1 in the Netherlands.[2] Others have flown in the USA.
A Mg 23, one of those still on the Austrian register, is on display in the Flugmuseum Aviaticum, Wiener Neustadt-Ost, Austria[3]
Data from Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1966/7[1]
General characteristics
Performance
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