John Greenfield & the Ghost Squadron

 PWS Orlik III (1939)

This started of as a mk2 but was changed to a mk3 when the wheel was fitted, this made it easier for the smaller tugs to beable to pull the orlik up. 

This model was finished for the summer of 2008 and some very memorable flights where achieved including two thermal flights of over two hours each in Interlaken aerotow meet in Switzerland.

De-Haviland Tigermoth
1/2 Scale

 DG 1000

1/2.25 SCALE

This great glider is the DG1000which is a very impressive plane indeed and is bought as a kit of parts from Paritech in Germany, This company is renowned for its quality of builds with the latest technology to produce a very efficient and strong airframe.

But is better bought in the semi built up version so to save a lot of time, the cocpit can also be supplied by this company the pilots you see are bought from another company and don't come with the glider. 

Unlike the full size the DG1000 is built with a full camber wing and uses 12 servos to cater for all control surfaces on the wing alone, this model has two sets of outer wings panels for thermal and aerobatic flight.

It also has the ability to change the ballest for futher inprovement to the aerobatic performance of this great glider which is shown in the picture below.

dg4

Musger MG12A

1/2 Scale

A brief introduction from the Ghost Squadrons web site on the Musger12a.

The Musger 12 single seater glider was designed and built by the Austrian Aero Club in 1937 as an intermediate training glider thatwas simple to build snd maintain but with a far superior performance than the then basic trainer models.
The Musger 12a was first built i 1938, with some minor improvements over the original Musger 12 model.
A total of 15 12A's were built but as far as we are aware there are no full size Musger 12a's flying or exist anymore which is the way of a lot of vintage gliders sadly
The basic design of the model is from a very detailed plan from Vincent Besancon who runs the very popular Retroplane wed site www.retroplane.net. Vi

ncent models was to a scale of 1/4.2 but this was to small to fit in with  the teams other models so the size was doubled to 2/2.15. Due to the increase in size and the structural loading parts of the model had to be redesigned and wood sizes changed but this was easy thanks to Vvincent providing the CAD drawings for parts of his design. A descision was made to build the structure like the full size using built up formers and ribe rather than cut from solid sheet. This would provide a real building challange and add fun to the build. Many parts such as the formers gussets and rib noses have been cut on the teams CNC machine but this still leaves a lot of manual construction to do.

The date is 30th of December 2012 just before the new year and with eyes on weather sites today would be the only window to do the maiden flight for the forseen furture, the weather was not that good but better then what is to come for the new year. My self  with John,Ivan,Pat and Jane and a little later Tony whom is all part of the ghost Squadron all gathered at the NLMFC flying site bright and early as rain was expected by 2pm and the winds in the morning will slow down from 20mph to 7mph by dinner time, but as always with the weather can never be relied on but this time it was in our favour with winds down to 3-5mph with a light chill, we could not belive our luck.
So gliders and tugs were put together, with the last minute checks done on the musger before its maiden flight as seen in the picture on the left.

It was amazing to see the Musger finaly all together and out of the workshop, it can also be seen the this is a very unusual glider because of the swept back wings.

The intricate work can been seen with the cover off The lines on the musger is like a carpenters dream it would look good in anyones front room as a centre piece if the room was bigger enough, I have never seen a glider with this much quality and skill of workmanship.

musger12e

All ok and just fitting the cover and tow loop Pat started up the extra large geenly tug and had a quick fly round ready for the tow. You don't realize the size of the Musger until some stands next to like Ivan has while holding the wings level while John does some last minute checks on the transmitter. There is no colour added to this glider it's all natural from the cloth to the ply skinning.

Of she goes and it bettered all expectations, no triming was required which says something about the qualitiy of the build. Here is a few shots of the high qualitiy pilot that is fitted in the Musger 

Nice one John

I would just like to mention that some of the information and a few of the pictures to help me create this page has come from The Ghost Squadrons web site.

To see much more on planes and new builds from the teams site please click on the link below.

The Ghost Squadron Web Site