On the way home last Saturday from the U.S. Team Training Camp at Chilhowee, Tennessee, your editors made a detour to Dick Butler’s workshop. We found Dick and Christian Streifeneder hard at work on the Concordia. Dick and his collaborators have been putting in very long days to get Concordia ready for flight testing this spring. With the World Championships in Uvalde, Texas only three months away, they have no time to waste.
This winter, Chris Woodward has been a regular in Dick’s workshop, applying a lightweight plastic film called SolarTrim to Concordia’s control surfaces. Last weekend, we interviewed Chris and asked him to explain the process and the rationale for using SolarTrim rather than gel coat or paint.
During our visit to Dick Butler’s workshop on February 19th, Dick graciously accepted our request for an interview. He talks about the status of the project and a few of the many remaining items that have to be tackled before Concordia debuts on the world stage in July.
If you’ve been following the Concordia reports here in the Café, you know that Heinz Weissenbuehler and his team at M & H Soaring spent about six weeks finishing the fuselage at their workshop in Elmira, New York. Like all of you, Bill and I had seen photos of the finished fuselage, but when we saw and touched (nee caressed) the fuselage in Dick’s shop last weekend, we were blown away by the quality of the finish. I’ve never seen another sailplane with a finish that matched Concordia’s. Heinz and his staff did an extraordinary job on the fuselage. The photos and videos below don’t begin to do it justice.
Rand and I had the pleasure of visiting Dick Butler yesterday and got a glimpse of the fully assembled Concordia. DB has made the US Team for the 2012 WGC in Uvalde, TX and he is now working feverishly to complete the Concordia in time for the Worlds. The pictures below are of the Concordia…
In the year 2002, sailplane designer Gerhard Waibel and competition sailplane pilot Dick Butler formed a pact to design an FAI Open Class sailplane. Their vision was to design an Open Class sailplane with maximum performance from a pure competition standpoint with no intent to go into serial production. The design of a sailplane always…
“Nothing ever built arose to touch the skies unless some man dreamed that it should, some man believed that it could, and some man willed that it must.” — Charles Kettering ——————————————————————————————————————- The Soaring Café is delighted to have the privilege of presenting the Concordia Project from inception through design, building and flight testing. Dick…
