CHAPTER II - Meeting the Salamandra glider
“WWS” is an abbreviation of "Wojskowe Warsztaty Szybowcowe" (meaning “Military Gliding Workshops” in Polish language), based in Krakow, Poland. Founded on 1935 by Waclaw Czerwinski who had taken over the management. The MRP-1 Salamandra project, was the first project which was created under his leadership. The Salamandra was a training glider, who had excellent flying characteristics, so that it was decided very quickly to take over in mass production in various workshops throughout Poland. Before the WWII, the Salamandra glider was also built under license in Yugoslavia and after 1943, the "Salamandra" was also produced in Romania. After the WWII, the production started again with a re-engineered version made from the “IS” which is an abbreviation of “Instytucie Szybownictwa (meaning “Gliding Institute” in Polish language), under the name Warszawa IS-A Salamandra. During the 1950ies, the Salamandra glider has been built in China, where a two-seater version was also created. Around 500 Salamandra gliders have been built around the World, up to date.
The glider was also known by nickname "Czuwaj" among the Hungarian Boy Scout Association, which was the Polish version of the standard Boy Scout motto.
The WWS-1 Salamandra glider, also inspired the Finnish Pik-5 design. The Yugoslavian built version was developed by engineer Ivan Šoštarić in 1939 and built by UTVA Panćevo factory as “Šoštarić UTVA Čavka”. After the end of WWII, the Yugoslavian built “Čavka” model was widely used in Greece and became very popular among the glider aviators. Both Athens aeroclub based at Tatoi airfield and Edessa aeroclub based at Panagitsa airfield, used these gliders for young aviator training purposes.
Construction of the Salamandra glider was entirely of wood with fabric covering on wings and tail unit. The fuselage consisted of a plywood covered nacelle for the single seat cockpit, with a wire-braced open strut rear fuselage supporting the cruciform style tail-unit. The high mounted wire braced wings were supported by struts from the bottom of the fuselage to approx 1/5 span. Later versions introduced windscreens and airbrakes in the wings. Wooden skids under the tail and fuselage nacelle comprised the undercariage.
The technical data & general characteristics are:
Type designation: Wojskowe Warsztaty Szybowcowe WWS-1 / Instytucie Szybownictwa IS-A Salamandra,
Usage: Solo training glider,
Crew: 1 pilot,
Year of first construction: 1935,
Country of production: Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania, China,
Length: 21 ft 3 in (6.48 m),
Height: 7 ft 6 in (2.30 m),
Wing span: 40 ft 11 in (12.48 m.),
Wing area: 16.9 m² (182 ft²),
Wing profile: Göttingen 378,
Aspect ratio: 9.2 / 1,
Empty weight: 309 lb (140 kg),
Gross weight: 496 lb (225 kg),
Maximum speed: 93 mph (150 km/h),
Stall speed: 24 mph (38.5 km/h),
Maximum glide ratio: 15.2 / 1 at 56 km/h (30 kts / 35 mph),
Rate of sink: 159.5 ft/min (0.81 m/s).
On 1967, Joseph Borzęcki converted a Salamandra to a motorized glider, equipped with a VolksWagen car engine 21 kW (28 hp) and named it "Cirrus". That specific motorized glider version, seemed very interesting to build under scale, but unfortunately I found out about it too late - I had already built the cabin and it was to risky to try convert the nose section in order house an engine.
Most noticeable differences with the primary 1935 built WWS-1 model, are the presence of the retractable airbrakes on the upper side of wings and the squared tips of the elevator fins, as seen into following picture.