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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1466.PDF
This Swiss-registered Foka was flown in last year's national championships by Derek Piggott, chief flying instructor, Lasham Gliding Centre FLYING THE SZD FOKA By Frank Irving WHEN Kenneth Owen asked me to write about the Foka andthe Dart, I came all over coy and said that it ill-becamethe Chairman of the BGA Technical Committee to tell the world what he really thought of particular gliders. To this, Mr Owen replied that I could always be incognito and, anyway, didn't I always write something funny elsewhere after World Championships, which didn't cause much umbrage. So, I yielded to his blandishments, but let it be known that this is all very unofficial indeed. The Foka first appeared at the 1960 World Gliding Champion- ships in Germany where, with the 18-metre Zefir, it produced gasps of astonishment and much incredulous head-shaking. Since then, it has been produced in quantity, and is one of the more out- standing 15-metre standard-class gliders in the world. Large numbers are in service in its homeland, Poland, and a noticeable quantity have been exported. The Foka's most startling feature is the slimness of the fuselage, the top of the cockpit canopy being about 30in above the ground. The pilot accordingly lies in a distinctly supine attitude, enclosed (or incarcerated) in a long transparent canopy. For all practical purposes, he sits on the bottom of the fuselage and the control runs are taken along the cockpit sides. There are some who think that the pilot's attitude is rather too extreme: certainly one's first impression is that a plump pilot would have difficulty in seeing the instruments over his turn. In the slightly nose-down flight-attitude, however, the effect is not quite as alarming as might be supposed. Finally, the aircraft has a distinctly swept vertical tail, apparently jSore appropriate to a Mach Number about ten times that at which it actually operates. It is possible to invent reasons for this feature, but one suspects "styling" to be the basic consideration. Anyway, hl h f l|he whole thing looks fast and sleek and, most important of all, "^ the air of being a coherent entity. The finish both external and eternal is good; detail design is mostly very competent; it seems remarkably free from afterthoughts and bodges; there are sundry refinements not normally found on British gliders (like extensive electrical bonding) and one assumes, quite rightly, that a very competent designer has been at work. In a land where aero-tow retrieving is commonplace, rigging andUe -"gging is less frequent than here. Acoordingly, these manoeuvres lack the convenience we expect on British gliders. Assembling the wings on the fuselage is not particularly easy, because the bits to be mated are not very visible and the conclusion of the ceremony involves twiddling an expanding collet arrangement with a sort of outsize sardine-can key, hoping that one's interpretation of the assorted arrows and Polish abbreviations is correct. After assembly comes the daunting matter of getting into the cockpit. This involves tailoring it to your requirements by means of the sundry adjust- ments. First, the bottom of the seat back is adjusted fore-and-aft so that the pilot's bottom is in a suitable position. The adjustment depends on a pair of bolts with springs of fiendish strength: the standard human hand is just strong enough to move either one bolt or the other, but not both together unless you take it by surprise. The next stage is to adjust the slope of the seat back so that one's lofty brow is just beneath the canopy and fix the headrest so as to minimize the bending-moment on one's neck. At this stage it pays Standard instrument panel of the SZD 24C Foka
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