Talk:Slingsby T.53

A fact from Slingsby T.53 appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 November 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Slingsby T.53 was the first all-metal sailplane designed and built in the United Kingdom?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/November.

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Aviation: Gliding

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I remember this beastie!

I spent many hours instructing in one of these (a T.53B) and also had the pleasure of rebuilding the centre fuselage after a heavy landing accident (not by myself I hasten to add!). A couple of things don't sound quite right from the Flight references, the wing sweep forward would be for centre of gravity reasons, the short moment arm of the instructor's position meant that there was minimal CofG change when flying it solo, the Schleicher K7 and ASK13 are the same. The T.53B at least did not have flush riveted structure but tubular dome headed pop rivets throughout which made drilling them out easier, the skin was too thin to countersink or dimple it. I seem to remember that it had servo tabs on the ailerons to reduce the control loads, even then it was very heavy and hard work to fly for any length of time. I have a good Slingsby reference book, will dig it out tomorrow. The YS-53 Sovereign was essentially identical and it should be covered as a variant I think, there is a YS-53 still flying at a gliding club not too far from me. There should be a pdf data sheet on the British Gliding Association website (under 'technical' or 'airworthiness' I think) Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:51, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the memories, I remember XV951 at Swanton Morley in 1968 as it stood out from all the wooden gliders of the time. Perhaps the prototype (T.53A) was built differently from the others, so far not been able to find a production list but any improvement/additions would be appreciated. MilborneOne (talk) 22:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've definitely got more info on the T.53, I think they fitted, or proposed to fit, permanent airbrakes to reduce the performance to stop the ATC from soaring it! Will dig out what I have, don't think that I have any photos of it sadly. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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