CVT1 Zigolo

Design and development

The Zigolo was the first aircraft built at the Centro di Volo a Vela del Politechnico Torino, the Soaring Centre of the Polytechnic of Turin. Designed by the Morelli brothers and intended as a low cost, easy to fly, training glider of modest performance, it was completed in October 1953 after sixteen months work.

The Zigolo was a cantilever high-wing monoplane with a single-spar, single-piece wing, plywood-covered from the front spar around the leading edge to form a torsion-resistant D-box and mounted on top of the fuselage with 2° of dihedral. Behind the spar the wing was fabric-covered. In plan the central section was rectangular and the outer parts tapered slightly to rounded tips. Frise ailerons filled more than half the span. Originally there were no wing mounted airbrakes or spoilers; rather, the Zigolo had door-type, underwing fuselage mounted airbrakes but these failed on the first flight and were replaced by conventional spoilers.

Its fuselage was decahedral in cross-section, shaped by longerons over formers with ply covering. The single-seat cockpit was immediately ahead of the wing, the upper rear of its one-piece perspex canopy blending into the leading edge. The fuselage tapered aft to a conventional tail, where a constant-chord, round-tipped tailplane and elevator was mounted on top of the fuselage, forward of the rudder hinge. The fin and rudder were straight-edged with rounded tip and heel, the rudder broad and extending down to the keel. Both tail control surfaces were unbalanced. The Zigolo had a short wooden landing skid with rubber shock absorbers which ran from the nose to under the leading edge, but the main gear was a fixed monowheel at about one-third chord. There was also a small tail bumper.

The Zigolo made its first flight on 7 April 1954 at the Aeritalia Airport, Turin, flown by Adriano Mantelli. It later flew in Venice.

Specifications

Data from The World's Sailplanes (1958) pp.152-5

General characteristics

Performance