SIEBEL RECORD-BREAKER RE-CREATED

摘要

The undoubted star of a fly-in at Bienenfarm airfield, 18 miles west of Berlin, from 11-13 September was Wolfgang Knobloch's newly built replica of a record-breaking Siebel Si 202 Hummel, D-EMDR, which in February 1939 set two records for aircraft with an engine of two-litre capacity. Originally flown in prototype form from the Siebel Flugzeugwerke airfield at Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, with a 45hp nine-cylinder Salmson 9Ad radial powerplant in May 1938, the Hummel (meaning bumblebee) light sport-plane achieved fame on 2 February 1939 when the first 'EMDR set a new altitude record of 19,626ft (5,982m) for a light aircraft powered by a two-litre engine and carrying two people, being flown on this occasion by Siebel test pilot Wolfgang Ziese. Four days later another record was set with just pilot Christophe Hilliger aboard, the four-cylinder in-line air-cooled Zundapp 9-092-powered machine reaching a dazzling 23,107ft (7,043m). Construction of the replica was undertaken by Josef Kurz and two other elderly gentlemen - including a former Siebel company employee from the Si 202 years - at the famous Wasserkuppe gliding field in central Germany in the year 2000. Wolfgang Knobloch explains, "I bought the Siebel ready to fly with a Limbach engine. This engine went hot all the time so I sold it. A lot has been changed, rebuilt or reconstructed, including the undercarriage, windows, electrics, seating, instrument panel, fuel tanks, interior, paint scheme and much more. This took a total of 3,500 hours over 14 years. Developing the engine installation was very time-consuming."