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A
lot of interest
was generated by glider aerobatic flights at the
earlier airshows. Aerobatics also
teaches positive
handling skills when faced with unusual flight situations.
Because of that
Hans Jacobs designed the Habicht as a
fully
aerobatic glider. The first presentation
was to be
at the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936.
The German research organisation
for gliding, the
DFS, made the calculations and tested some
parts.
Because of the
13,60m wingspan the Habicht had a very good roll rate. The maximum
g-loads are
+12g and -9g, caused by the strong 3mm
diagonal
grain plywood
sheeting
of the wings. This
construction made it
very strong against torsional loads.
When
the Olympic Games in Berlin
were held,
4 gliders had been
finished and all flying expectations
were fulfilled. The airshow above and parts in the stadium were very
spectacular. The landing was
outside the stadium. These spectacular airshows were
flown by
Hanna Reitsch and Heinz Huth
(gliding world champion in 1960). The Habicht was not only presented in
Germany. Hanna Reitsch
also inspired the audience at the Cleveland air race in 1938.
Every Habicht had an open
cockpit, except
the prototype.
Characteristic for aerobatics were the aerobatic
‘sun-burst’ pattern
also at that time. Later built
Habichts had a bigger
rudder to get more
manoeuvrability.
The Habicht was not only built for aerobatics. It was
used for the education of the pilots for the Me
163. This was a very fast rocket plane
with very poor flying qualities,
because of the short wing span
and the landing speed of 260 km/h. To copy
these qualities
there existed two further versions of the
Habicht: one with 8m and one with 6m wing span.
This
Habicht was called
the
“Stummel-Habicht”
because of the short wing span. After the pilots did some flights on a
Grunau Baby they
had
further
education on the Habicht. The “Stummel-Habicht” was the last step to fly
before
flying
the Me 163
without it’s
engine
running and being aero-towed
behind
an
Me 110. The pilots were
then
sent to
fly
against American bomber squadrons.
Wolf Hirth put some machine-guns and bombs on board the Habicht for
training purposes.
Only one Habicht survived war and is now placed in a
museum in Paris. Another Habicht was built
under the direction of Josef Kurz of the OSC Wasserkuppe. After some
years of flying it was put in
the
Wasserkuppe Museum.
In 2007 they brought it outside again, and it is now flying.
(Thank's for helping with the
translation Graham; a perfect english aerobatic pilot) |