M.Simons The World's Vintage Sailplanes 1908-45

THE GOEPPINGEN 4, GOEVIER

  By 1938 Wolf Hirth had recognised the advantages, in two-seat training sailplanes, of a side-by-side seating position, and set his chief designer, now Wolfgang Huetter, to work on the Goeppingen 4 or, in the natural ДальшеMore>>> contracted form, Go-vier or Goevier. The prototype flew in November 1938 with Heinz Kensche as pilot.
  The wing had the typical Hirth planform with broad chord, lobate, slotted ailerons. Plain dihedral was used and there was no intention to achieve a very high performance. Airbrakes of the parallel action Huetter-designed type were fitted. The aerofoil was one of the Joukowsky computed forms.
  The Goevier fuselage was necessarily broad and extra shoulder room was provided by the wing root fairing. A large landing wheel was fitted, with nose skid, and the cockpit was fully enclosed by a transparent canopy. The tailplane was strut-braced, the rudder in the first instance being identical to that of the Wolf solo sailplane. During test flying this rudder proved unsatisfactory and five different designs were tried before, on the Goevier 2, the final tall rudder with aerodynamic balance was chosen. Series production began in January 1939 and at least 25 were built during that year. Another 75 or so were produced in the early war years. In the late stages of this production run, yet another rudder design was introduced.
  Goeviers were used extensively for training night-fighter pilots, completing many flights in darkness.
  In 1951 a new version, the Goevier 3, entered production. It had a fuselage considerably shorter than the earlier Goevier. Twenty-one were built, the last six being exported to Holland during 1954. Several survive, two in England and others in Holland and Germany.
  The most remarkable flight ever made in the type was a duration record attempt in early June, 1939, by Fuehringer and Hofmann. They remained airborne for 49 hours 45 minutes, but unfortunately missed by 30 minutes the world record set the previous year in a Kranich.

  Technical data:
   Goevier 1: Span. 14.84 m. Wing area. 19.0 sqm. Aspect ratio, 11.53. Empty weight. 235 kg. Flying weight. 410 kg. Wing loading, 20 kg/sq m. Aerofoil, Joukowsky. tapering to a symmetrical tip with 5.5 degrees washout. Best glide. 1 : 20 at 70 km/h. Minimum sinking speed, 0.90 m/sec at 60 km/h.
   Goevier 2: As for Goevier 1 but span 14.73 m.
   Goevier 3: As for Goevier 2 but empty weight. 245 kg. Flying weight as for Goevier 2 (reduced allowable cockpit load).