Slingsby Kirby Gull
British single-seat glider, 1938
The Slingsby T.12 Gull was a British single-seat glider designed and built by Slingsby Sailplanes and first flown in 1938.
Development
In the late 1930s the gliding movement in the UK did not receive the support from the government that was forthcoming in other European states. Fred Slingsby designed the Type 12 Gull to be relatively inexpensive and easy to fly in the hands of the inexperienced pilots in the UK. Slingsby had had a bad experience with the Type 9 King Kite entering incipient spins at low airspeed which was ascribed to the use of a NACA 4312 aerofoil section at the wing-tips, so he designed the Gull with a modified RAF 34 profile at the tips. The cause of the wing drop problem on the King Kite was later found to be inaccurate manufacture, but the Gull retained the modified RAF 34 section.
Construction of the Gull aircraft was of semi-monocoque wood and plywood throughout, with a mixture of plywood and fabric skinning and covering. The wings were skinned with plywood forward of the main spar to form torsion boxes which increased their rigidity. They had a distinctive gull wing form, as the inner 2 metres carried marked dihedral out to the attachment points of the lift struts to the wing spars. Beyond, the wings lacked dihedral. The rectangular planform of the inner wings included the gulled portion and 2 metres beyond, with spoilers in the upper surface outboard of the gull joint in some later aircraft. Ailerons filled the trailing edge of the tapered outer wings.
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