We’ve started a new project with our building team: the Neukom Elfe S3. The Elfe S3 is a 15m glider, designed in Switzerland by Albert Neukom. It was first flown in 1966 and entered production that same year.

We are not aware of any recent scale models of the Elfe S3 in this size and, as usual, we don’t have much in terms of original plans to work from. Thankfully the glider compendium of Martin Simons (1965-2000) contains a good A4 drawing. I’ve had this drawing enlarged to full scale, so that our building team member and plug builder Richi can start work on the plug for the fuselage. Georg has started designing the wings. We are likely to build the moulds for the fuselage in Autumn 2025 and the first models in the winter of 2025-26, in the hope that we can maiden our first Elfe S3 in spring 2026.

We will be building a 1:3.5 scale version, so a wingspan of 4.28m. The airfoil will be our trusted MH-32, at 9% (1.7% curvature). We’ve been using this airfoil for our past few builds. It provides an optimal mix of excellent thermalling, speed and agility. We will also use six wing control surfaces and no air brakes. The tailplane will not be all-moving but we will use an elevator. We will also use a retractable gear, like the original.