Sun, Jul 31, 2016
Owner-Designed And Built, This Airplane Is Truly Unique
By Anthony Liberatore
If you looked off towards the flightline in the Noth Aircraft Display area at AirVenture last week, there was a profile of a homebuilt that was not familiar to most EAAer's. On closer inspection ... with a 54-foot wingspan and an engine ... it was obviously a motor glider. An even closer look would have you asking 'is that composite?'. Yes it is, and in fact all carbon fiber except the vertical tail and landing gear which are glass. That unique aircraft is the Caro 1 MG and was designed and built by accomplished aeronautical engineer Sonja Englert.
The Caro is powered by a 2276cc 80 hp VW conversion engine which she purchased and to which she added a new prop hub. The tandem 2 seat motor glider as a 954 lb empty weight with a 1477 lb gross, and is licensed as an experimental glider.
The wings are also removable with an interesting twist. The outboard panels are easily removable, and the Caro can be flown without them with the shorter span of 30.6 ft.
The inboard wing sections are also removable by removing two spar bolts and disconnecting the controls and fuel connectors. The Caro is also equipped with an updraft cooling system has a single lower cowl inlet and dual upper cowl outlet flaps that are controlled by one cockpit controlled lever that Sojna can control from the cockpit which allows her to reduce drag in cruise, soaring, or to reduce shock cooling on decent.
Currently Elbert has a fixed-pitch prop but in the future she hopes to add a feathering prop to reduce drag when the Caro is in soaring mode. Elbert (pictured) noted she has no soaring performance data to report as the fixed pitch prop acts as a speed brake while soaring, however, Elbert noted on her flight to Oshkosh from Oregon she did soar the Caro some while en route. Two predominate characteristics of motor gliders are high aspect ratio wings and a very streamlined shape that add to their aerodynamic efficiency. That efficiency model carries through with the Caro. Elbert said the Caro cruises at 100 kts true airspeed at 2.5 gph, which works out to 46 mpg at cruise.
(Images by the author)
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