Rubik R-17 Móka
Aero-Ever · Hungary · first flew 1944 · glider
The Rubik R-17 Móka was a Hungarian aerobatic glider designed in the late 1930s. One prototype was built and first flown in 1944.
Recognition (WEFT)
| W — Wings | Mid-mounted, tapered |
|---|---|
| E — Engines | 1 × none, embedded-mounted |
| F — Fuselage | Elliptical-section fuselage with the pilot in an open cockpit just ahead of the wing leading edge |
| T — Tail | Conventional |
WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.
Spot it by:
- One-piece cantilever mid-mounted gull wing, trapezoidal in plan with rounded tips
- Elliptical-section fuselage with the pilot in an open cockpit just ahead of the wing leading edge
- Semi-recessed monowheel under the wing with a rubber-sprung nose skid and a small tail skid
The inner 25 per cent of the wing span had 8 degrees of dihedral and the rest 1 degree of anhedral. The tailplanes were mounted just above the fuselage and braced from below by a single strut on each side.
Specifications
- The Rubik R-17 Móka has a length of 6.5 m (21 ft).
- It has a wingspan of 13 m (43 ft).
- Its maximum speed is 360 km/h (224 mph).
- Typical crew: 1.
Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.
History
The design was started in 1937, a year after the first flights of the German DFS Habicht, which it resembled. The Móka did not fly until the spring of 1944, when flight tests were limited to 400 km/h to avoid flutter and revealed very heavy aileron stick loads.
Variants
The prototype was destroyed in the Siege of Budapest. The R-17b had new ailerons and a lighter structure, and the first of a batch of three flew in 1950.
Where you'll see it
The R-17b suffered aileron flutter, and one crashed after the flutter wrested the stick from the pilot. The second pilot was killed when flutter broke up the wing during a high-speed dive, development stopped and no more were built.
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