The Brditschka HB-3, HB-21 and HB-23 are a family of motor gliders of unorthodox configuration developed in Austria in the early 1970s.
| HB-3, HB-21, and HB-23 | |
|---|---|
| |
| Brditschka HB-23 | |
| Role | Motorglider |
| Manufacturer | HB-Flugtechnik |
| Designer | Heino Brditschka |
| First flight | 23 June 1971[1] |
The unusual design was based on work done by Fritz RaabinGermany in the 1960s. The pilot and passengers sit in a fuselage pod with the engine and propeller behind them. The pod also carries the fixed tricycle undercarriage and the high cantilever wing. The tail is carried on a pair of booms that emerge from the top and bottom of the fuselage pod, the upper of which passes through the propeller hub. The HB-21 has a conventional tail and has two seats in tandem accessed by a sidewards-hinged canopy, while the HB-23 has a T-tail and side-by-side seating accessed via gull-wing doors in the canopy.
The Militky MB-E1 was a modified HB-3 with an 8-10 kW (11-13 hp) Bosch KM77 electric motor. It was the first full-sized, manned aircraft to be solely electrically powered. Flights of 12 minutes duration at up to an altitude of 380 m (1,247 ft) were just within the Ni-Cd battery's capacity. Its first flight was on 23 October 1973.[2]
Data from Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1990[4]
General characteristics
Performance
Related development
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era
