Designing the Antares family of sailplanes was not a task which could be achieved by a single person. Next to having a core engineering team at Lange Aviation GmbH (then Lange Flugzeugbau GmbH), a team of external experts were assembled, which, unique to the glider manufacture industry, combined cutting edge knowledge from a variety of fields:
- Aerodynamics
- Flight mechanics
- Structural engineering
- Safety design
- Electric motor and motor control design
- Battery system design
- Propeller design
Alltogether 24 Professors, Doctors and Engineers participated in the design of the Antares. This team of renowned experts gives Lange Aviation GmbH an impressive R&D capacity also for future projects.
TU Delft, the Netherlands: “The Aerodynamic design of the Antares is complete. I would at this point not know how to improve any further upon it” (Prof. Boermans discussing the future of sailplane design)
Prof. R. Jeanneret / Prof. A. Vezzini
HTL Biel, Switzerland: Electric motor and its power electronics. „Everything about this motor is unusual: the mass to power ratio, the quiet run, the propulsion and step motor function“ (The opinion of the industry-electronic specialists Jeanneret and Vezzini about the Antares motor)
Propeller aerodynamics and design
Flutter investigations
Design of the cockpit structure under crashworthiness aspects
Flight mechanics
Software engineering
Crash structure in the cockpit region. Not Antares related: Formula 1 composite structures for BMW-Williams, Minardi and others