Top speed 230 km/h Length 8.55 m | Wingspan 20 m First flight August 1955 | |
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The Bruni 3V-1 Eolo was a single seat Italian competition glider, first flown in 1955. It took part World Gliding Championships of 1956 but retired early after sustaining damage.
Contents
Design and development
The 3V-1 Eolo, designed by Giovanni Bruni and built by a collaboration between SIAI-Marchetti and the Alessandro Passeleva Soaring Sports Club of Vergiate, so it is sometimes known as the SIAI-Marchetti Eolo 3V-1. It was a high performance sailplane intended for competitions and record breaking. It was an all wooden cantilever mid-wing aircraft, with a high aspect ratio, single spar wing which was strongly straight tapered in plan and mounted with 3° of dihedral. The wing was covered with unusually thick plywood to maintain the laminar profile and its tips carried "salmons", small streamlined bodies intended to minimise induced drag. Narrow control surfaces filled the whole trailing edge, each occupying about a third of the span; the outermost were conventional ailerons, followed by a second set of ailerons which drooped when the flaps on the inboard third of the wing were lowered. The flaps and ailerons were all slotted. The Eolo had a pair of mid-chord airbrakes mounted just behind the wing spar, each with sixteen blades deployed above and below the wing surfaces. In the initial version there were inboard leading edge tanks that could hold 32 kg (71 lb) of water ballast.
The Eolo's fuselage was a wood framed, ply skinned semi-monocoque of elliptical cross-section. Behind a pointed nose the pilot sat under a long, one piece canopy which extended rearwards almost to the wing leading edge where it was smoothly blended into the fuselage. It had a V-tail with surfaces at 110°; these were straight tapered and ended in salmons, like the wings. The elevators were equipped with trim tabs. The glider had a monowheel undercarriage, equipped with a brake, which retracted behind two doors. There was also a sprung tailskid and a small protective nose skid.
The Eolo first flew in August 1955. A year later it competed in the World Gliding Championships held at Saint-Yan but had to retire after an accident on the third day.
Specifications
Data from Wilkinson (1958)
General characteristics
Performance