HUNGARIAN GLIDERS
1914

Type designation: BIK
Name: BIK
Designer: József Kiss
Class: Primary
General arrangement: Shoulder carried, wooden, wire barced, no aileron, traditional tail unit.
Crew: 1
First flight: 1914
Manufacturer: József Kiss
Number of built: 1


Short history:
This attempt in Hungary to fly a glider had been made at Budapest in the autumn of 1914. The location was a gentle hillside in the western part of Budapest, called "Kis-Svábhegy".
The glider was designed and built by a member of the BIK (Budai Ifjúsági Kongregációk - Youth Congregations of Buda) Boy Scout Group, József Kiss, who had built it from materials - soft wood, canvas and steel wire - purchased on his savings. His workshop was the entrance chamber of an old turkish cellar of the house at the Buda side of the city where he lived.
The glider had no ailerons or any equivalent structural item and had to be carried on the shoulders of the pilot. However the glider had horizontal and vertical stabilizers and an elevator controlled by wires activated by the pilot.
The disassembled glider were carried to the location of the attempts by ther members of his Boy Scdout Group where it was assembled. The pilot was the designer-builder. Several take-offs were performed and jumps up to several meters distance on 1,00-1,30 m altitude were achieved. When the wingtip of the glider caught the ground at one of the attempts the glider was demaged though the pilot remained unscratched. Then the attempts were abandoned. Due to lack of finance and the war the glider was not repaired. During the war its usabe materials were used up for different purposes.






Dimensions:
   Span, m: ~7.0 m
   Fuselage:
   Length, m: ~5.0 m
Masses:
   Empty glider, kg: ~30 kg



Origin of data and picture:
Magyar Cserkész, 1938 február 1. (Hungarian Boy Scout, February 1, 1938)

Gábor FEKECS E-mail: fekecs.gabor@t-online.hu