The Loudon Sailplane by Johan Kiekans
My father was a founder member of our local gliding club and in the fifties he was Secretary. During that time he collected a lot of information about gliders and manufacturers and also sometimes about building projects of gliders and other aeroplanes.
In 1987 I found in his archives a general arrangement drawing of the UTG1 'Loudon'. I spoke to him about this glider and he showed me some articles in old 'Sailplane and Gliders'. For example:- Nov '49 New Canadian Sailplane, the Loudon, by W Czerwinski
Feb '50 Loudon Sailplane
Jan '51 More flying hours for clubs- an advanced trainer, 'Loudon,'
by W. Czerwinski.
From this last article he learned that a set of prints was for sale for $3.00 from the address of Mr Czerwinski. This set of prints took my interest and I wrote a letter to the University of Toronto, Institute of Aerospace Studies, in Ontario, Canada asking for more information and asking about the availability of the drawings. To my surprise I received a letter back from a retired Professor Emeritus, Mr Ben Etkin. The University had asked him to reply because, in fact, he had been the manager of this project. In his letter he told me that the nearly complete set of drawings consisted of 62 sheets making a total of 279 sq. ft! The copying might cost $1300.00 because of the very poor state of the originals. Unfortunately, he could not offer any guarantee concerning the completeness and correctness of the drawings.
At the time the glider was built an experimental type certificate was obtained from the Canadian Department of Transport. In the articles I found the following information:-
"Thanks to Professor T.R.Loudon, Head of Civil and Aeronautical Engineering at Toronto University and Mr B.S. Shenstone, past President of the Soaring Association of Canada, a scheme was worked out and adopted by the University to design and build a glider by the Fourth Year Students under the supervision of responsible aircraft designers (including the well known Polish glider designer Waclaw Czerwinski) Thus the University of Toronto is offering its students an excellent training in practical aircraft design, giving simultaneously to the Canadian Gliding movement a new type of glider"
The Loudon is a high wing sailplane with cantilever wing, having a moderate aspect ratio and airfoil thickness. The main characteristics data:
| Span 45.00 ft |
| Length 22.15 ft |
| Weight empty 362 lb |
| Total weight 562 lb |
| Wing area 175 sq ft |
| Wing loading 3.21 pounds/sq ft. |
| Aspect ratio 11.6 |
| Best glide 22/1 |
| Min sink 2.3 feet/second |
The glider was built mainly of wood using birch, spruce, basswood and birch plywood as standard materials. It took to the air for the first time on November 5th 1949 at Oshawa Airport flown by Les Racey, the main builder of the plane. Jack Ames, Don Holman and Frank Brame also flew it that day.
The prototype was registered CF-ZBN-X and was painted 'varsity blue, with white fabric and nose cap, flaring to a narrow stream-line on the fuselage sides. It was hoped that the Loudon, as a popular type of training glider would serve clubs in Canada as did the well known Grunau Baby in Germany before the war.
It would be interesting to know if the glider still exists and if the drawings can be saved by putting on microfilm. I am not interested in building for myself any more but I find it interesting for the VGC. Johan Kiekans On receiving this article from Johan I remembered that my friend Mike Davy, who before his retirement had been Vice President Engineering at De Havilland Canada, had known Czerwinski, so I wrote asking him to find out some more. He remembered the Loudon project well as some of the students working on it also worked at A.V.Roe Canada with him at that time and they frequently involved Mike in their discussions. He passed my request on to Professor Ben Etkin who is now 80 years old and he informed me that the glider was destroyed in a windstorm only two years after its first flight. There was only the one example made.
The Professor sent me a copy of an article by Czerwinski and Shenstone which appeared in the Engineering Journal for Jan 1955, which is too long to repeat here, but describes the task facing designers of aircraft who are required to work in groups rather than single-handed, the advantages of teaching by example and the difficulty of teaching design. ("The untrained genius is more trouble than an untrained clod")
They went on to describe the essential flight testing and development work and said "After the initial shaking down flights the Loudon was carefully flight tested and improved as problems surfaced:-
It was evident, for instance, that the control stick forces were too high at slow speeds. This was corrected by adding a trim tab on the elevator and on future models this could have been done by changing the tailplane incidence. The spoilers were not as effective as desired and a high frequency buzz started at 60 mph. It was found that the spring retaining mechanism was not stiff enough. This was cured, as well as the low effectiveness of the spoilers, by reducing the gap between the spoiler plate and the upper wing surface.
A mild tail shudder and rather poor slip characteristics were cured by adding a rounded fillet between the fuselage and the fin. Before the fillet was added, the airflow was breaking away over the fin and rudder with the rudder actually stalling, thus making it difficult to keep the machine in a sideslip. All these minor changes took place during the first few months of test flying.
The performance obtained in test flying shows improved minimum sinking speed and slightly higher sink in the region of higher speeds. The best glide angle proved to be almost exactly as calculated."
The page of illustrations are from this article. It appears to have been a promising glider, maybe the Ka8 of its day, so it is a pity that only one was built and that it came to such an early end. Ed.