THE MODERN SAILPLANES

By

George B. Moffat, Jr.

Soaring July 1964

The HP-11

My comments on the HP-11 will have to be confined to performance and comfort as I have not had a chance to fly the ship myself. Judging from the comments of those who have, I would guess that its handling must be very close to that of the HP-10. This all metal ship is being marketed in kit form through the designer, Dick Schreder of Bryan, Ohio. The kits come in varying degrees of completeness and cost about $3,000. Building time for the latter is estimated at about 1,000 hours, the sheet metal wing taking rather longer than the HP-10's. The ultimate performance will of course depend heavily on the amount of time and care spent on filling and sanding the wings. The initial model, unpainted and with thinner wing skins, showed very inferior performance compared to last year's beautifully finished ship.

The performance of Dick's HP-11 is magnificent. It is fully equal to the Sisu, perhaps a bit better at high speeds. I could not pull away much with the HP-8 until over 95 mph. In circling flight the Eleven could leave the Eight although slowly. Dick generally flew rather wide circles at what I guess was 52-54 mph with 12 degree flap. Like the other HPs the Eleven seems to climb best at speeds well over minimum sink for level flight. The HP-8 does best against other ships at about 12 mph above stall.

Rigging and de-rigging seem simple but less quick than the Sisu. Insertion of the tail pins especially takes time. Assembly by an average crew would probably take 10 minutes or more. The wing joins in roughly the same way as the Ka-6 although the smaller diameter main pins often seem to need a good deal of hammering.

The cockpit is the usual Schreder Magnum size with the pilot in medium upright position. Everything is convenient to the hand and the visibility unexcelled.

The HP-11, like the Ten, offers an enormous amount of performance for the money. In good hands either can equal the performance of the Sisu while saving the complication of retractable gear, dive breaks as well as flaps, etc. Each ship offers the young pilot a chance to get a real thoroughbred at a reasonable cost.