The Schempp-Hirth HS-3 Nimbus was a prototype

glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...

built by

Klaus Holighaus __NOTOC__ Klaus Holighaus (14 July 1940 – 9 August 1994) was a glider designer, glider pilot and entrepreneur.

. The HS-3 Nimbus was a high performance single-seater. Holighaus designed and built this prototype glider in his spare time with assistance from

Schempp-Hirth Schempp-Hirth Flugzeugbau GmbH is a glider manufacturer based in Kirchheim unter Teck, Germany. History Martin Schempp founded his own company in Göppingen in 1935, with the assistance of Wolf Hirth. The company was initially called "Sportfl ...

. Strictly speaking, it is not a Schempp-Hirth glider but rather a glider built at Schempp-Hirth. It employed the same fuselage as the Open Class Cirrus and a similar tail, but had an entirely new wing, high-set and in three segments adding up to a span. The

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

first flew in January 1969. The type was seriously under-ruddered. After the pilot applied full stick and rudder, the glider continued to fly straight ahead for several seconds before suddenly dropping a wing, requiring full opposite controls. No air brakes were fitted and it was an exceptionally difficult glider to land. It was damaged several times in overshoots. However, it had an exceptionally high performance for the time, with a best glide ratio of 51:1 at and a minimum sink rate of only . George Moffat of the USA flew the Nimbus in the 1970 World Gliding Championships at Marfa, Texas. He had to modify the aircraft's cockpit to fit in, and became the first person to sample its spin characteristics when, in mid-competition, the glider departed from a steep turn into autorotation with asymmetric water ballast. While considering bailing out, he remembered that the spin of the similar

Akaflieg Darmstadt D36 Akaflieg is an abbreviation for ''Akademische Fliegergruppe'', groups of aeronautical engineering students from individual German Technical Universities, pre and postwar, who design aircraft, often gliders. History Otto Lilienthal published his bo ...

could be tamed by rocking the stick back and forth violently. Flexing the wings caused the angle of attack to change and recovery eventually ensued. In spite of these difficulties, Moffat and the Nimbus won the World Championship. The production version of the Nimbus was the

Schempp-Hirth Nimbus-2 The Schempp-Hirth Nimbus-2 is an Open Class glider built by Schempp-Hirth during the 1970s. The Nimbus-2 first flew in April 1971 and a total of over 240 examples of all subtypes have been built until the beginning of the 1980s. It replaced the ...

Specifications

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Further reading