Alisport Silent Club Explained

The Silent Club is a single seater sailplane of Italian manufacture. It is of the FAI type DU Class glider. It is sold by Alisport ready-to-fly or kit-built as pure glider or self-launching glider. The self-launching version is fitted with a single-blade propeller belt-driven by a two-stroke engine or optionally by an electric motor.

The electric version was the first production electric-powered commercially available aircraft and appeared in 1997. It is driven by a 130NaN0 DC electric motor running on 400NaN0 of batteries that provide 1.4 kWh of energy.^[1]

The highly modified version, the Alisport Silent Club-J is a self-launching aerobatic jet motor glider shown on the U.S. airshow circuit and all over the world by Bob Carlton.^[2] It is powered by twin AMT-USA AT-450 jet engines (200 N (45 Lbf) of thrust each) originally developed for radio-controlled aircraft.^[3]

Design and development

• The fuselage is carbon and glass fiber composite with epoxy resin.
• The wingspan is 12 meters without winglets.
• The flaperons stretch for 10.0 meters of the full wingspan.
• Schempp-Hirth-type spoilers extend on the upper wing surface only.
• Fixed or retractable main wheel behind the pilot, with shock absorber and drum brake activated via spoiler control lever aft travel.
• The Silent Club has light ailerons, light elevator, along with a generous rudder. The roll rate is quick due to the lively feel of the ailerons.
• Stall is predictable and recovery is simple. In level flight as airspeed is reduced when approaching the stall speed the sailplane vibrates a little, at this point decreasing the angle of attack results in airspeed increase and normal flight resumes, from a climbing attitude the sailplane stalls decisively, the nose pitches down gently and recovery is easy with stick forward.
• Spin entry is obvious and recovered with rudder and stick.

References

• Silent Club Flight Manual
• https://web.archive.org/web/20070308124458/http://www.alisport.com/eu/eng/alianti.htm
• Glider Handbook
• Soaring, March 2005

Notes and References

1. Web site: Silent Club>Electric Self-launch Sailplane. 2009-11-04. AliSport. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20090420110802/http://www.alisport.com/eu/eng/silent_b.htm. 2009-04-20.
2. Web site: Silent Wings Airshows, jet sailplane. 2006-12-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20061211114808/http://www.silentwingsairshows.com/jet.html. 11 December 2006 . live.
3. Web site: AMT-USA jet engine product information . 2006-12-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20061110025303/http://usamt.com/Mel/comm/comm_products.html . 2006-11-10 . dead .