Inspired by their beauty, a couple of years ago, I decided to design and build an own horten microlight aircraft, named “Schneewittchen” (“Snow White”).
With this blog, I would like to keep you up to date on the project.
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Schneewittchen – a horten microlight airplane
Schneewittchen is designed to fulfill the requierements of LTF-L (PDF), a class of very light airplanes with up to 120 kg empty weight. The requierements are quiet stringent, including not only the extremely low empty weight, but also a very low stall speed below 55 km/h (corresponds to 30 kn or 34 MPH). With the all-wing concept, Schneewittchen suits very well this class. To keep the weight as low as possible, I decided to use an electric drive (for example a Geiger HPD 10), as accumulators do not count to the empty weight.
Three-side-view
Data and specifications
| Span: | 12.5 m |
| Surface: | 16.6 m² |
| Aspect ratio: | 9.4 |
| Average chord: | 1.5 m |
| Sweepback: | 28° |
| Max. take-off weight: | 270 kg |
| Est. empty weight: | 120 kg |
| Best glide: | 25 at 83 km/h |
| Lowest sink rate: | 0,75 m/s at 64 km/h |
| Material: | mixture between carbon composite and wood |
Last blog entries
Wing molds
Slowly but steady, the wing is growing. This year we’ve been working on the wing molds and made the first part of the wing. Before you get too excited, it was “only” an elevon. Small compared to the wing, but still very exciting to hold the first wing piece in hands. The word “elevon” is…
Some impressions from AERO 2022
The AERO show 2022 was very inspiring. We met many Horten Believers and other interesting people. Thanks to all our visitors and followers for staying tuned. Many visitors were interested in Snow White Four days with intensive chats, exchange of ideas and experiences and meeting Horten fans (and skeptics) lay behind us. We were very…
Meet us at AERO Friedrichshafen 2022
From April 27th to 30th, Snow White’s center section will be presented at AERO 2022, hall/stand no. B4-113 (DVLL). If you want to have a glance at Snow White and get in touch with the constructor and team of #hortenmicrolight, meet us in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The last days, we were quite busy to get Snow…
hortenmicrolight 
Do you envision take off under it’s own power? Certainly possible with a ground crew at a wingtip.
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Yes, that’s the idea. Some small powered gliders with a monowheel manage to take-off without help, for example LS9 and Apis Bee. They have an approximate bank angle of 8 to 10°. The Snowwhite will have something around 7°. I have been told that rolling to the runway is no problem with 70mm inliner wheels installed at the wingtips, as long as the tailskid has enough load.
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you can also check by using a truck like the one used in south France to introduce the Swift handling to students : it checks pitch stability and shows how sensitive is roll as well. Could be a trick to use before taking off on your own or being towed on short distances even before this …This “truck” was used at Gap Tallard and the company called Bartair – same trucks were used for certification of hang-glider and load testing also
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if this testing truck solution interest you i can search here in France where is this equipement and how could you use it- Very “flying wing friendly” people i guess tey would be helpfull …if ever you are interested
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Hi Thé, that sounds like a great idea! It’s a little bit too soon to look for such a truck. We still have lots to do before we maiden Schneewittchen in any way. However, knowing that there is such a possibility is very good.
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maybe this blog is helpful in some way
http://43012weed.blogspot.com/
its very detailed
thanks, best regards
askan
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Thanks Askan
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Wonderful to see these ideas flying again.
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Wonderful plane…flies with minimum control surfaces and saves weight…great!
Did you think to share blueprints for homebuilders or just for enjoy building this beautiful bird?
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Dear Jaime,
thank you for your interest. We’re still developing the airplane and as long as the prototype has not flown, we’ll not share blueprints or offer parts to other homebuilders. There is still lots to desgin, develop and build before it can fly. Having finalized flight testing and maybe modifying a couple of things, we’ll think about how it can be shared with other builders.
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You have Done a beautiful Job with the air-frame. I can’t wait to see it completed.
Robert
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Thank you Robert!
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What airfoil section do you use?
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It’s an own designed airfoil, which camber and thickness are modified along span. Tha base airfoil is semi-laminar and has a sligthly negative pitching moment coefficient.
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just found this flying wing project: https://akaflieg-karlsruhe.de/ maybe you dont know it. thanks for sharing your project best regards
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Do you incorporate washout along the wing ??
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Yes, it has a moderate washout and the airfoil is modified along the span too.
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