CVT1 Zigolo

The CVT1 Zigilo (English: Bunting) was a single-seat, 12-metre-span (39 ft) Italian training glider designed and built in Italy in the 1950s. Only one was completed.

CVT1 Zigolo
Role Single-seat medium performance training glider
National origin Italy
Manufacturer Soaring Centre of the Polytechnic of Turin (CVT)
Designer Alberto & Piero Morelli
First flight 7 April 1954
Number built 1

Design and development

The Zigolo was the first aircraft built at the Centro di Volo a Vela del Politechnico Torino, the Soaring Centre of the Polytechnic of Turin. Designed by the Morelli brothers and intended as a low cost, easy to fly, training glider of modest performance, it was completed in October 1953 after sixteen months' work.[1]

The Zigolo was a cantilever high-wing monoplane with a single-spar, single-piece wing, plywood-covered from the front spar around the leading edge to form a torsion-resistant D-box[1] and mounted on top of the fuselage with 2° of dihedral.[2] Behind the spar the wing was fabric-covered. In plan the central section was rectangular and the outer parts tapered slightly to rounded tips. Frise ailerons[2] filled more than half the span. Originally there were no wing mounted airbrakes or spoilers; rather, the Zigolo had door-type, underwing fuselage-mounted airbrakes but these failed on the first flight and were replaced by conventional spoilers.[1]

Its fuselage was decahedral in cross-section, shaped by longerons over formers with ply covering. The single-seat cockpit was immediately ahead of the wing, the upper rear of its one-piece perspex canopy blending into the leading edge. The fuselage tapered aft to a conventional tail, where a constant-chord, round-tipped tailplane and elevator was mounted on top of the fuselage, forward of the rudder hinge. The fin and rudder were straight-edged with rounded tip and heel, the rudder broad and extending down to the keel. Both tail control surfaces were unbalanced. The Zigolo had a short wooden landing skid with rubber shock absorbers which ran from the nose to under the leading edge, but the main gear was a fixed monowheel at about one-third chord. There was also a small tail bumper.[1]

The Zigolo made its first flight on 7 April 1954 at the Aeritalia Airport, Turin, flown by Adriano Mantelli. It later flew in Venice.[1]

Specifications

Data from The World's Sailplanes (1958) pp.152–5[2]

General characteristics

  • Crew: One
  • Length: 6.55 m (21 ft 6 in)
  • Wingspan: 12.0 m (39 ft 4 in)
  • Wing area: 14.0 m2 (151 sq ft)
  • Aspect ratio: 10
  • Airfoil: NACA 4415
  • Empty weight: 151 kg (333 lb)
  • Max takeoff weight: 250 kg (551 lb)

Performance

  • Maximum speed: 180 km/h (110 mph, 97 kn) placard
  • Stall speed: 45 km/h (28 mph, 24 kn)
  • Maximum glide ratio: best 23:1
  • Rate of sink: 0.75 m/s (148 ft/min) minimum, at 60 km/h (37 mph)
  • Wing loading: 17.8 kg/m2 (3.6 lb/sq ft)

References
  1. Pedrielli, Vincenzo; Camastra, Francesco (2011). Italian Vintage Sailplanes. Königswinter: EQIP Werbung & Verlag GmbH. pp. 132–5. ISBN 9783980883894.
  2. Wilkinson, K.G.; B.S. Shenstone (1958). The World's Sailplanes:Die Segelflugzeuge der Welt:Les Planeurs du Monde (in English, French, and German) (1st ed.). Zurich: Organisation Scientifique et Technique Internationale du Vol a Voile (OSTIV) and Schweizer Aero-Revue. pp. 152–5.
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