The famous Martin Weberschock (F3B, F5B, and numerous gags at contests – flying F3B speed nude is one of them) did together with Hannes Delago (=HD) design a F3B glider called Europhia in 1996/97. As far as I know you can “borrow” the CNC milled positives for this very good thermal glider to make you own moulds for a very reasonable price. Hans Peter Gölz from Germany has flown this plane with some success in F3B a couple of years ago and uses it as the subject for teaching young pilots how to mould gliders and fly F3B. Reinhard Vallant from Germany has also used the Europhia in F3J with good success – lately with a cross tail. The airfoil was designed specific for this glider and consists of three airfoils. I don’t know for sure in which order. The Europhia was designed when the duration changed from 7 to 10 minutes in F3B, and one of the key elements in the design was that the launch height should be excellent – and it is. It launches really well and this is closely related to the camber that’s greater than most other airfoils in F3B. For speed it needs a lot of ballast and negative flaps and even then it’s not quite fast enough, BUT it’s a great thermal soarer and penetrator, and the airfoils can be used on you thermal glider as well. Compared to the others I believe that it’s somewhere between MH 32 and SA 7035, but remember that the HD 48 is designed for the use of flaps and that the aileron/flaps width should be 27% - quite broad, and it gives you two large flaps to brake with. I borrowed one of John Rasmussen’s Europhias in the spring of 1998 and flew with it while we finished making moulds for Trinitus. I also brought it to Upton-upon-Severn since I was short of planes, and it was a beauty to fly.

A couple of years ago I reconstructed a 2-meter glider which originally had an Aquila airfoil without D-box but with turbulating balsa list on the upper front part of the wing (“Blue Phoenix”). I changed it to a more aggressive 2-meter with HD 48 (the stronger main spar, the D-box and the faster airfoil was the aggression) and it flew a hell of a lot better – flew better, means glided better, and didn’t sink worse. The HD 48 may look like it’s flat on the rear part of the bottom, but there is actually a slight concave curve. Check out the Ariane team homepage for more information and airfoils: http://www.delago.de/ariane/EProfil.htm.