F.V.D. Stehaufchen

The F.V.D. Stehaufchen or Der Dresdener Stehaufchen, later relabelled the Akaflieg Dresden D-B1 Stehaufchen, was an unequal span biplane glider designed and built in Germany in 1921. It flew with some success at the second and third Rhön competitions on the Wasserkuppe and was also used to train pilots.

Design and development

Before the formal formation of the Akaflieg Dresden in about 1924, there was collaboration between the Technical High School Dresden (TH Dresden) and the local flying club, the Flugtechnischer Verein Dresden (F.V.D.). The Stehaufchen was one result, named and designed by three TH Dresden students, Horst Muttray, Reinhold Seiferth, and Rudolf Spies. The biplane configuration was chosen to ensure strength against rough handling and its small size by the need to fit within the 4.20 m (165 in) limit set by rail transport. Construction began on 11 June 1921 and the first flight took place only about ten weeks later on 23 August on the Wasserkuppe.

During its career, the glider was known in England at least as the F.V.D. Stehaufchen after the club, or just as the F.V.D. glider to distinguish it from the F.V.D. monoplane or Doris of 1922. After the founding of the Akaflieg Dresden it was retrospectively renamed the D-B1 Stehaufchen, numbering it as the first of their ten designs.

The Stehaufchen was a single bay biplane with two spar wings of unequal span mounted without stagger but with an unusually large interplane gap of 1.50 m (59 in). The lower wing was mounted on the lower fuselage and the upper one held high above it by three pairs of inverted V-struts, one pair leaning backwards from the nose to the forward spar and the two other running vertically from the upper fuselage longerons to the two spars on the centre line.