Design and Development
By the mid-nineties Rolladen-Schneider, prompted by customers, began designing a successor to the LS6. Development was protracted, as the LS8 and LS9 projects had higher priority and the company's owner, Walter Schneider, felt the LS6 was still competitive.
The initial design was made under the direction of Wolf Lemke. Werner Scholz then developed the prototype, the LS10-a. Although early 3-view drawings of the LS10 showed a curved canopy rail similar to that of the ASW24, when the prototype was revealed it had the same straight canopy rail as the LS6 and LS8.
The first flight took place at Egelsbach on 6 June 2003. This was followed by extensive flight-testing and then evaluation in competitions. The prototype won the Hockenheim and Bayreuth contests in 2004 and the German Nationals in Lüsse in 2005. It took second place in the 2005 European Championships in Nitra, Slovakia. The flying qualities were reported in the German aviation magazine, Aerokurier, to be excellent.
In July 2007, Rick Walters placed first in an LS10 at the International Lilienthal Glide 2007 which is the combined Pre-World for the 30th World Gliding Championships and the 2007 German nationals in the 15M and Open Class, in Lüsse Berlin.
There are two models in production. The ‘turbo’ version is the LS10-st. It uses the same engine installation as the LS8-st. LS10-s has an engine compartment for retrofitting the engine.
It achieved certification in January 2010.
Read more about this topic: DG Flugzeugbau LS10
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