First fiberglass airplane? ... when? ... where?

[riggerrob]

When was the first fiberglass airplane built?
Where was it built?
What was its name?
What sort of structural testing occurred before the first flight?
Which manufacturing methods?

I am guessing that it was a competition sailplane, built in West Germany during the late 1950s. I also suspect that it was made in female molds.

 

[fortrena]

The following (page 8) may be of interest.

https://journals.sfu.ca/ts/index.php/ts/article/viewFile/81/74

The automobile section of the 1947 Convair Model 118 ConvairCar seemingly had a fiberglass body. Would that count?

 

[Dynoman]

Duramold, used in 1939 in the Hughes Hercules (Spruce Goose). It was a resin and birch wood composite. The first unpowered manned all-composite aircraft may have been the Akaflieg Stuttgart fs-24 Phoenix. It used a reinforced fiberglass or fiber-reinforced plastic mesh. The first powered all composite aircraft may have been the Windecker Eaglet in 1969.

 

[Foo Fighter]

A history on the invention of Composites and how it helped the British to win WW-2

The Spitfire was the most famous fighter aircraft of World War II. It was the only British fighter plane to be in continuous production…

medium.com

There was a Spitfire fuselage and some wing parts produced from flax reinforced phenolic compound which was found to be suitable but Aluminium was not as scarce as feared.

This attachment references.

 

[fortrena]

It is worth noting that a small team from the Edmonton Soaring Club, in Alberta, Canada, was among the first to follow in the footsteps of the West German engineers. Paul Tingskou oversaw the design of a successful glider, the Viking. A prototype flew around 1960. Sadly, the hopes expressed by Fiberlite Products of Edmonton to produce this aircraft went unfulfilled. Only two aircraft were completed between 1960 and 1962.

Incidentally, the Akaflieg Stuttgart FS-24 Phönix first flew in November 1957. Seven other aircraft of this type were subsequently manufactured.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

The Horton Brothers flew an Hols Der Teufel based primary glider in May 36 made almost entirely from a paper and resin composite known as Astralon. They followed this up with the Horton 5A flying wing which flew (briefly, crashed just after takeoff on its 1st flight ) under its power in June 37. The Hols Der Teufel and Horton 5A used a traditional spar, rib and skin structural architecture with a large TE area’s, fabric covered. The ribs where hot pressed to form a lattice shape. The single Horton 4b featured 3 individual moulded Dynal/Tronal (K.Stopf) leading edge panels per wing bonded on a Aluminium spar. However it’s wing fluttered badly ultimately leading to its loss.

GRP - I understand the first flying non structural GRP composite parts appeared in WW2 in the US;- minor bits of Corsair and B29. The first primary flying structure in GRP (glass fibre in polyester?) was the Vought Prirate tail plane, specifically “Fabrilite” used in the fin and rudder. (First flight Oct 46).

As said above, a non GRP based composite fuselage structure (flax-phenolic known as Aeroplastic) was trialed for a Spitfire fuselage, non flying, one-off. Less well known is this material actually made it into production on the Miles Magister horizontal tailplanes with 300 delivered starting in late 43.

After this, the Brits were going in the right direction with the Miles M76 Crabpot glider, but the Miles bankruptcy (withdrawal from aeroplanes) stopped its development. I’ve seen a reference that it’s vacuum moulded woven asbestos cloth/phenolic composite, paper honeycomb sandwich wing was statically tested at RAE Farnborough in early 47. Smaller components such as the root rib were manufactured from GRP. This suggests it was manufactured in 46 and its two 30ft span wings were the largest single pieces of composite made at that time. Following Miles’s closure in mid 47, the Crabpot was finished by a former employee (renamed the Kendal K1) and flew albeit without any composite ie it had a new all wood wing built by EoN. In the late 40’s Shorts designed and flew the Nimbus glider which used asbestos fibres in a polyester resin in some of its primary structure, but I’ve been unable to find out what specifically and most reference’s describe it as a wooden airframe.

But all that said the Germans got the title of the first all GRP aeroplane with the Phoenix.

 

[fortrena]

The following may be of interest.

The glider in question, which was fitted with a wooden wing, was also known as the LBS III, or Tohi SB. It, or more likely an immediate predecessor, seemingly flew for the first time on 31 May 1956.