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The first glider I ever bought will always have a special place in my heart but unfortunately, not a place in my hangar. She is being sold to fund the purchase of another glider. | |
About the LS3aLike all LS series gliders, the LS3a is delightful to fly. You feel like the glider wants to fly. We have flown many 500km flights with her.The LS3a is a development of the LS3, which was the production model of the LS2 which won the World Championships in Waikerie. This was the time when 15m class was developed from Standard class. The LS2 had flaps as its means of approach control, thereby allowing the use of flaps in standard class. This was quickly outlawed and the 15m class was created. The LS3 therefore has airbrakes as well as flaps. With full airbrake and landing flap, the LS has the steepest approach of any glider I have flown except a Puchacz with full brakes and an extreme side-slip. I've never tried side-slipping the LS - it's never necessary. The LS3 wing was built with perfectly straight leading and trailing edges. You should be able to recognise the unbroken taper of the wing in photographs. The reason for this was that there was only one control surface - a "flaperon" - driven from the inboard end. This made a very simple wing and control layout but the disadvantage was that the long flaperon required a lot of mass balance to avoid flutter. There was around 15kg of lead in each wing. This gives the LS3 a reputation of being heavy to rig. The LS3a was developed to solve this weight problem. It has separate flaps and ailerons. The flap is still driven from the inboard end but the aileron has a conventional pushrod drive in the wing. This makes the wing a lot lighter. The wing shape and profile was not changed. The ailerons droop with the flaps down to 10º (thermalling flap; landing flap is 20º.) The only disadvantage is the l'Hotelier couplings for the ailerons that must be disconnected before de-rigging. All other control connections are automatic. See the "Dick Johnson" flight reports on the SSA web site for more details on the LS3 and LS3a. (Large PDF files.)
History of VH-IZRIZR was manufactured in Germany by Rolladen Schneider in 1978. It is serial number 3163. I believe this is one of the earliest LS3as produced. It has been upgraded since then with all factory upgrade options, except the LS4-style instrument panel. It was manufactured without a nose release so we had one installed in 2000. It was originally painted in a "stars and stripes" colour scheme but this was removed in the 90s. You can still just see traces of the stripes when you're polishing her.She was imported into Australia when new by Klaus Breitkreuz and operated out of Narromine for the first few years of her life. An hour meter with air-switch was part of the original instruments from the factory. I believe the original Borgelt B10/B11 vario system was fitted at that time. I don't know anything else about her history in that period. She was then sold to a couple of Danish opal miners, Martyn Tishler and Steen Christensen. They flew at the Lightning Ridge gliding club. Apparently they didn't find enough opals so she sat in a shed for many years until 1993. This is why she has so few hours = 450 hours in 1993. The log book was lost about this time. A new log book was issued. Presumably the hours were taken from the hour meter and the number of landings was estimated. From 1993 to 1998 she was owned by Bob Thomas and flew at Gawler. All of the maintenance was done by Rudy Gassmier. This is documented quite well in the log book we have. There are a number of notes about ADs completed and minor repairs. IZR still has her original gelcoat finish except for the control surfaces which were refinished for an AD. There are no major repairs or accident damage in the log book. From November 1998 to January 2005 Mick Webster and I owned IZR. We have taken her to State and National competitions as well as becoming regulars at the Narromine Cup Week. I did my first 300 in IZR and we have flown many flights over 500km since then. Mick's best flight achieved an outstanding average speed of 130kph over 400km at the 2004 Australian Nationals.
Operating and Maintaining IZRIn the 4 years we have owned IZR, we have not had any major maintenance problems. As noted above, we had a nose release installed. This makes it much easier to fly on tow. The water ballast bags are probably not as reliable as integral tanks but when something goes wrong (you know it will) the bags are easily replaced, unlike tanks. We have replaced one pair of bags. We received her with mylar seals fitted to the upper surface of the wing and tailplane. It is designed to fly without them, using only the lower surface seals and internal seals. We have kept the mylar because it looks right. All the mylar was replaced in October 2004.The control circuit bearings are quite amazing. Anywhere the Germans could have used a more expensive bearing, they did so. All the bearings are sealed so there is nothing to do except look at them on each Form 2. The exception is the control surface hinges which are tiny needle-roller bearings. I examine them very closely and use a good waterproof grease, which I have found will last at least two years. So far I have not had to replace any of these bearings. The controls are very smooth as a result of this attention to detail. This makes me quite disappointed in my new Discus 2b, which uses all open bearings that must be greased and inspected regularly. The undercarriage mechanism is a known weak point on all LS gliders including the LS4. If it is not put down with a single smooth movement, it can fail to lock. The adjustment of the locking mechanism is a complex procedure (turn 'A' 2 turns clockwise, 'B' one turn anticlockwise etc.) When we got IZR, all of the adjusters were encased in epoxy. However last year I discovered that the epoxy had not actually stuck properly and it was all less than finger tight. It is now tight. This is probably the only unusual thing that needs checking on each form 2. Instrument tube leaks are typically difficult in any glider. A leak in the TE tail fitting took a long time to track down but is now fixed. There is an unreachable and probably unrepairable leak in IZR's fuselage static ports. However there is a recent AN which says that these ports are not to be used - you must use the nose statics. No problems were found in the recent Form 2 inspection. | ||
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