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A highly respected design as a motor glider, the 109 can also perform a useful, albeit leisurely touring function with an endurance that could technically take it from Melbourne to Brisbane non stop. The 109 has recently returned to production following an order for 60+ from the RAF's Elementary Flying Schools, an example of which is the subject of our photo. (Jim Thorn)
From The Cockpit – Grob G1098
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The Grob 61098
To the question, what is better than an aircraft put to use, a satisfactory answer is aircraft put to two or more uses. A commercial transport aircraft, designed solely for one function, pays its way being flown 3,000 hours or more a year. A private aircraft on the other hand never pays its way and consequently any extension to its usefulness and versatility is not only welcome, but very marketable. The motor glider genre falls into this category.
The German light aircraft industry is heavily sailplane-based. The reasons are historical, they extend as far back as the Treaty of Versailles. At the end of the First World War, in order to prevent the rise of an offensive military force, the allies treatised that Germany would be without an air force. Gliders and gliding proliferated as the least regulated form of aviation activity in the country. When the ’30s saw the progressive rise of the Third Reich, Hitler used the established glider manufacturing industry and glider schools to train an enormous reserve of pilots for the formative Luftwaffe. German air power waxed and waned in awesome fashion, but the sailplane design and building expertise of the nation has continued to be fundamental to German aviation and to advance to the state of being the world leader in this area of technology.
When the motor glider market developed in the late seventies, Burkhart Grob had a depth of experience on composite sailplane production that enabled him to respond with an indigenous design, the G109, flown firstly in 1980. Grob Flugzeugbau refined the design with the G109B three years later.
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