The Slingsby T.3 Primary (a.k.a. Dagling) was a single-seat training glider produced in the 1930s by

Fred Slingsby Frederick 'Fred' Nicholas Slingsby MM (6 November 1894 – 21 May 1973) was the founder of Slingsby Sailplanes Ltd (later Slingsby Aviation). Biography Slingsby was born on 6 November 1894 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, the son of Reube ...

Kirbymoorside Kirkbymoorside () is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. It is north of York; midway between Pickering and Helmsley, and on the edge of the North York Moors National Park. The parish had a population of 3,040 in the 20 ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

Design and development

During the 1920s

Alexander Lippisch Alexander Martin Lippisch (2 November 1894 – 11 February 1976) was a German aeronautical engineer, a pioneer of aerodynamics who made important contributions to the understanding of tailless aircraft, delta wings and the ground effect in aircra ...

designed a training glider with very low performance to introduce pilots gradually to full-blown gliding. The result was a glider with a very simple structure of an open framework

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

, with short wings attached by cables to a king post and the base of the fuselage. Lippisch's original design, the Zögling (Pupil in English) had an all-wood fuselage but

Wolf Hirth Wolfram Kurt Erhard Hirth (28 February 1900 – 25 July 1959) was a German gliding pioneer and sailplane designer. He was a co-founder of Schempp-Hirth, still a renowned glider manufacturer.Segelflugbildkalendar 2011 Hirth was born in Stuttgar ...

instigated a redesign of the rear fuselage using steel tubes.

History

The plans for the modified Zögling made their way via the United States to the London Gliding Club and Reginald Foster Dagnall, whose RFD company put it into production as the RFD Primary. They built 27 in 1930-31. The type became known as the Dagling, a name formed by combining Dagnall and Zögling, which later became used informally to cover all types of primary gliders in the UK. Fred Slingsby took over construction in 1934 and production continued up to the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The Primary should not be confused with the similar T.38 Grasshopper which was produced for the

Air Training Corps The Air Training Corps (ATC) is a British Youth organisations in the United Kingdom, volunteer youth organisation; aligned to, and fostering the knowledge and learning of military values, primarily focusing on military aviation. Part of the ...

in the 1950s.

Operators

Variants

;Slingsby T.3 Primary :Derived from the Wolf Hirth-modified Zögling ;RFD Primary Type AT :Production of the Primary by the R.F.D. Co, named Dagling from a contraction of Dagnall and Zögling. ;Hawkridge Dagling :A modified Dagnall built post

by the Hawkridge Aircraft Co.

Specifications

References

* Ellison, N.H. ''British Gliders and Sailplanes 1922-1970''. A & C Black, 1971 * Simons, M. ''Slingsby Sailplanes''. Airlife Publishing, 1996 -

External links

{{Slingsby aircraft 1930s British sailplanes Glider aircraft

Primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Work ...

Parasol-wing aircraft