Quote:
Originally Posted by Kougarok
...a Blanik L-33...
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Having designed, spec'd, and helped install glider canopies, I can make a guess that Todd might be having trouble getting a good match with the original.
This is just a guess, of course. But in the last few decades of working with gliders, I have never seen a really good fit of a free-blown canopy like Todd makes on a fuselage designed for a stretch-molded transparency like on a Blanik. The free-blown process just doesn't give you the control over the 3D shape that you get from stretch molding on a mandrel. The usual thing is to get a canopy that looks about right from the side, but pooches out in the forward view. That's the sort of thing that is fairly easy to accommodate when you can adapt the canopy frame and fuselage to fit the bubble, but the Blanik is not a very good candidate for that approach.
That said, I have seen some of Todd's work, and it is pretty darn good. If it can be done with free blowing, Todd can do it.
One thing you might consider is to call the team at Aircraft Windshields in LA and ask if they have a plug for a Blanik transparency. It will be a bit pricy (around 1.8 AMU), but it will still be about a third of the Mecaplex transparency that Blanik America would sell you.
Thanks, Bob K.
Edit add: If you were at Ephrata this year, you saw the canopy I designed on Brad Hill's Tetra-15.
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