The Schleicher Ka 8

The Ka 8 (normally referred to as the K-8) is the Scottish Gliding Centre's last remaining fabric-covered glider, callsign 'CTZ'. With its hard, upright seating position, limited legroom and numerous cold, noisy draughts the K-8 is hardly the last word in comfort, but for its many admirers it possesses one endearing property. With its low airspeed and wingloading it can often stay up when most others can't and on weak lift days it is usually to be found at the top of the stack. Comfort aside, the K-8 is an easy glider to fly and pilots trained on the glassfibre machines will have no difficulty in adapting to it. For SGU members minimum qualifications to fly it are a few dozen flights in the Junior and permission of an instructor. Because of its many differences you will need a thorough briefing before the first flight which should not be planned for an unusually windy day.

When winch launching it helps to keep the stick right forwards for a few moments to try to prevent the glider tail from bouncing along the ground but the ground run is surprisingly short and the K-8 climbs away faster than almost anything else. Towards the top of the launch, especially with heavier pilots, it is common to run out of elevator authority and an eye needs to be kept on the asi. Visibility is quite reasonable but the high wings make rearward vision very different to most of the glassfibre aircraft. It's thermalling performance is second to none and with its low stall speed it is easy to make the most of any thermals. Compared with the glassfibre machines it has a relatively poor best glide (27:1 according to the manufacturer but after a lifetime of knocks probably nearer to 24:1 now!) and to a pilot brought up on glassfibre its penetration into the wind is poor so it is a good idea to keep a little nearer than normal to the field. When landing on windy days it is best not to get too far outside the downwind boundary or you may not get back! The K-8 lands slowly and lightly and is easy to put down where you want to. The mainwheel is unbraked but in an emergency the machine can be eased forwards onto the skid which stops it in no time (emergencies only please!).

Daily Inspection for Ka-8b CTZ

SGC Ka-8b CTZ landing

SGC Ka-8b CTZ landing

SGC Ka-8b CTZ landing

SGC Ka-8b CTZ landing

SGC Ka-8b CTZ landing

The K-8 was Rudolf Kaiser's eighth glider design (hence its designation) and the prototype first flew in 1957. In its original form the Ka 8 had a very small cockpit canopy and a second version had windows in the sides of the cockpit for improved visibility. The third version, the modified Ka 8B which is the SGC model, has a larger one-piece blown Plexiglas canopy and provides quite reasonable visibility. It is built of mixed materials, including metal, wood and glassfibre. The fuselage is a welded steel tube structure, with fabric covering over spruce longerons and a glassfibre nose cone. There is a non-retractable, unsprung, unbraked mainwheel, and a nose skid mounted on rubber blocks in front of it, with a springy steel runner supporting the tail. The cantilever high wings are single-spar structures of pine and plywood, with a plywood leading edge torsion box and fabric covering aft of the spar. There are Schempp-Hirth air brakes in the upper and lower surfaces and the wooden ailerons are plywood covered. The cantilever tail unit is of similar construction to the wings, with plywood-covered fixed surfaces and fabric-covered rudder and elevators, and there is a trim tab in the elevator.

Ka-8 Polar Curves

Ka-8b Specifications: (e&oe, read the handbook and placards!!)

Schleicher Ka-8b Isometric Views

See the BGA abbreviated data sheet here.

page last updated on 17th January 2003 (c)2002-2003 and the

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