A Flight Test Evaluation of the Mosquito

The Mosquito is Glasflügel's entry into the 15-meter flapped sailplane racing category, and it is a sleek, modern, fiberglass sailplane that is both meticulously engineered and pleasing to the eye. Its well-known cousins are the AS-W 20, LS-3, and Mini-Nimbus. All four made their competition debuts during the 1977 summer season. Our Dallas Gliding Association testing has already been completed with the AS-W 20 and LS-3, both of which showed superb performance, and the Mini-Nimbus, which displayed a good but slightly less outstanding polar curve. Naturally, we were anxious to add the Mosquito's polar to our data records; so when Jim Crisp of Lubbock, Texas, graciously offered to bring his unusually clean and well-sealed Mosquito for testing, we immediately accepted. The Mosquito uses the same wing as the Mini-Nimbus, or more correctly, the Mini uses the GlasfIügel-designed Mosquito wing. The basic bottom-hinged wing flaps work conventionally through a-7.5˚to +12˚normal flight range. The ailerons droop and raise in unison with the flaps to provide maximum wing efficiency over a wide airspeed range. The airbrake control lever is located beside the flap control handle on the left side of the cockpit. It is several inches taller than the flap handle and is easily reached by the pilot. The airbrake actuation raises a forward-opening flap on the wing's aft top surface. As this upper flap opens past roughly 20 degrees, it begins to force the lower conventional flap to larger deflections. The upper flap then functions to both balance the lower flap airloads and to increase drag. Full airbraking rotates both the upper and lower flaps through roughly 60-degree angles. The system works beautifully, and impressively steep landing ap-p r o a c h e s can be made with little practice. These same airbrakes are used with the Mini-Nim-bus, and further details are included in Reference A. The Mosquito's cockpit is very comfortable and the visibility provided by the one-piece, forward-hinged canopy is quite good. Its canopy hinging system uses four links in a semi-parallelogram configuration. It is probably stronger than those of the AS-W 19, AS-W 20, and LS-3 cantilevered, spring-balanced, gas systems, but not quite as easy to operate. The control stick is mounted on an excellent link' parallelogram system that allows the pilot's hand-grip to be comfortably aft, yet prevents vertical accelerations from inducing unwanted elevator control motions prevalent with many aft-joggled, conventional, control-stick installations. The only cockpit control …