Elfin - a hybrid motor glider

@peter

I think you put this thread in the wrong category, it’s an EASA CS-22 certified glider with all the advantages and then some – no issues at the border for example, no special permit for ultralight and so on

Emir wrote:

I’d really like to learn how it’s innovative and yet a company from Slovenia produces the same stuff for years.

https://www.front-electric-sustainer.com/index.php

My club’s new Duo Discus will have a FES, that’s just for limping home. You can’t do >1000km with luggage and your wife – Glider engines usually aren’t very reliable and/or don’t have the range to actually travel.

I don’t think the elfin is very innovative by itself, they just improved on the (extremely innovative) S10 – but that is a 35 year old steel tube fuselage design, where performance was of utmost priority – and maintenance requires a “two meter arm with three ellbows and a freely rotating wrist” as someone so aptly put it. Plus very little useful load.

Emir wrote:

You do that with properly powered aircraft.

The S10 with a Rotax 914 is very much capable of doing so.

It is probably less comfortable in rough air and you can’t bring hard cases. The long wing is trouble when taxiing, but for parking, you can fold it. Also sitting reclined with the canopy right above you like a coffin lid is a glider thing that’s not for everyone – one that at least took me getting used to. You can launch with only the prop noise, which will please any resident-ridden airfield operator and for landing, you don’t (have to) do noise at all, but you’re still capable of a go around in seconds.

At about 11l/h Super – which is mainly due to the weight and the L/D – I think that compares favourable to the gallons and gallons of 100"L"L the average ancient GA plane guzzles. Yes, they may seat four or more (how often do you fly alone?) or you don’t need to travel light.
It even compares favourably to most Ultralights, apart from the newer extremely sleek ones, say, the Swiss Excellence Risen https://www.flyrisen.com/index.html

The Risen could probably do the travel aspect better or at least faster (if you don’t have a problem bringing your 600kg UL to, say, France), bigger GA planes could carry more or more convenient, but why shouldn’t it be possible to travel with the Elfin? In average comfort and excessive amounts of style, that is.

@Peter: In case you wonder why I post here in the middle of the day: I’m sick at home, rescheduling appointments for the week. Still just a customer, give me the benefit of doubt – I’m here to stay.

Ibra wrote:

Landing elsewhere in gliders is considered “bad manners”
I took TMG to an AirShow, paid for two places of parking…

The outer wing folding device is supposed to work inside of five minutes for a single person and will reduce the wingspan to about 11m, so I don’t see that as a problem. Our club’s G109 also had a wing folding mechanism, it probably hadn’t been used for 20 years due to the weight involved – you had to rotate the whole wing, but then you had it flush against the fuselage.

I can see that you don’t want to fold the outer wing if you don’t have to, as you’d need to tape the gaps over and over again – but if space is at a premium? Or to minimize hangar rash? Or to get a hangar storage at all?

Vref wrote:

What would be the purchase price of this piece technology?

Vref wrote:

I owned a Taifun 17E it gave me a hybrid gliding and relative good travelling experience […]

One of my club members has a Taifun – he says he doesn’t use her for gliding, only for travelling and if he has the urge to soar, he just takes one of the club’s gliders. I wouldn’t know, as I haven’t flown it. But this is basically the opinion I have about all motor gliders I have flown, from Falke to G109: Yes, one can use them for gliding, especially in very good weather, they just don’t live up to pure gliders, not the least due to the high sink.
From the few Stemme owners I know, I just hear how beautifully they glide. But that can also be some kind of confirmation bias: You paid a lot of money for something so it must be good. On the other hand, Klaus Ohlmann uses one very sucessfully, so I assume if one can’t make it work, it’s just a skill barrier.
Unfortunately the one flight I made in one, the weather was marginal, so we didn’t turn off the engine while we were scud running around the airfield.

My intention is to do excursions from Berlin to say, the Alps for an extended weekend – go there friday afternoon or saturday morning, bimble around, fly wave or below the relief of the mountains, all the fun things – and go home Sunday evening. Or if my wife comes along, just go there for hiking or to any small airfield with something fun for us to do. And If I can’t have the whole weekend, I just soar the local flatland or go for a 100$ burger.