The Minimoa model has a span of 38 inches!! Look at how Bob's ailerons are working. We altered the fuselage red color lines a little to keep the solid white aft fuselage. Bob entered his Minimoa cardmodel in the Orange County (Ca) 'International PLASTIC Model Society' contest and guess what??

The Minimoa with its amazing silhouette, it’s probably one of the most reproduced vintage gliders these days, but it still remains a curiosity. It symbolizes the 30’s of the German soaring. It was for many of us a technological marvel which helped many pilots quit the slope flying and explore the thermal or even the wave soaring. It was a big step from experimental soaring to pure sport flying.

The Minimoa was one of the first realization of the young company Göppingen Segelflugzeug-bau born in 1935 when Wolf Hirth and Martin Schempp teamed up. Renamed Schempp-Hirth Segelflugzeugbau after the war, they are today one of the most famous and largest glider manufacturer.

Schempp and Hirth needed to offer a high performance sailplane of moderate price. The Moazagotl was very good but twenty meters span was too large and costly for the expected market. Seventeen meters seemed more reasonable..and the possibility of offering the aircraft with alternative spans, 16, 17 and 18 meters, was considered.

With a cantilever wing there would be a worthwhile savings in drag. For cloud flying the structure was stressed for a load factor of 10 instead of the usual 8. The extra weight of material required would be useful for faster flying on good days. The main spar was required to curve in two planes where the sweep back and the dihedral bend coincided but this presented difficulties in construction, overcome with special jigging.

To retain the stability and safe handling of the Moazagotl, the new sailplane had the same general features, a swept back wing with pronounced gull dihedral, large ailerons and strong washout, mounted high on the fuselage. When seated, the pilot's head was inside the wing, so outward vision was not good. A window in the roof helped a little. Landings would be on a skid. Split flaps were installed beneath the wing to aid landing in small spaces.

Because of his artificial leg, Hirth (right) had the controls set up with an overhanging control column working a torque tube which passed over his right shoulder to bell cranks in the wing root. The entire top front of the fuselage lifted off to allow him to get in and out. This was not to continue with production aircraft however.

This unusual prototype flew in 1935 and was taken to the Rhon meeting. A smaller version of the Moazagotl, was named the Minimoa. The first Minimoa accompanied Hirth when he visited Japan to demonstrate and promote soaring later in 1935, and was sold there. A second prototype was built, with a landing wheel and normal controls. This too went to Japan later. One more of the high winged version was built and sold to a Romanian pilot.

After this there was some substantial redesign before production began. The wing was mounted lower on the fuselage with a new, much improved cockpit canopy giving the pilot a better view. The tail unit also was redesigned with a fixed tail plane instead of the all moving elevator of the prototypes. Various sizes and types of rudder were tried at different times. The landing flaps were replaced by spoilers and eventually, on later models, air brakes.

This is a photo of the Fiddlersgreen version of the Minimoa. The red band around the swatzstikka was used on civilian aircraft in the 1930s and 40s.

Three views of Kancho's Minimoa beta build-Sept '05. This has been over a year in the making