| ASW 12 | |
|---|---|
| Role | Open-class sailplane |
| National origin | Germany |
| Manufacturer | Schleicher |
| Designer | Gerhard Waibel |
| First flight | 1965 |
| Number built | 15 |
The ASW 12 is a single-seat Sailplane of glass composite construction. The wing is shoulder mounted and it has a T-tail. It is essentially a developed production version of the Akaflieg Darmstadt D-36.
In 1965 Gerhard Waibel left the Technical University of Darmstadt to enter Alexander Schleicher GmbH & Co as a designer. His first project for his new employer was the ASW 12. This sailplane achieved numerous records and victories in national and international competitions. The exploits of Hans-Werner Grosse in an ASW 12 are legendary, e.g. the 1461 km flight of April 25, 1972 from Lübeck to Biarritz which stood for thirty years as the absolute World Free Distance Record. Previously, on July 26, 1970, Ben Greene and Wally Scott co-set a World Free Distance Record by flying separate ASW-12 sailplanes a distance of 1,153.82 km (716.95 mi) from Odessa, TX to Columbus, NE.
The fuselage of the ASW 12 was extremely slender for its time. It has a retractable landing gear and a two-piece canopy, of greater depth than was the case with the D-36. Each individual fuselage was manufactured - as with the D-36 - in two halves laid-up on positive molds. The construction material was a double sandwich of glass-fibre reinforced composite over balsa wood. This is an unusual and expensive procedure for serial production.
The wing planform is double-tapered. The profile is a modified Wortmann FX 62-K-131 at the wing root and a Wortmann FX 60-126 at the tip. The wings were built in the usual fashion in negative molds, and are also of fiberglass/balsa wood sandwich construction. Water ballasting is not available.
As landing aid the ASW 12 possesses only a parachute brake, an unreliable system that lacks modulation. A number of ASW 12 were retroffited with a second chute to increase the odds of successful landings.
General characteristics
Performance
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