OSTIV Plaque with Klemperer Award to Richard W. Butler

The OSTIV Plaque with Klemperer Award is awarded to:

Richard W. Butler

for a lifelong commitment and determination to improve the performance of contemporary competition sailplanes and to push the limits of what appears to be possible – not as a professional working for a sailplane manufacturer or a research facility, but as an individual and a competition pilot.

Richard Butler, “Dick,” is best known as the driving force behind the Concordia Open Class sailplane. Although the Concordia project is worthy of acclaim in its own right, some aspects are especially remarkable: On the one hand, he undertook the project as a private individual and brought it to a successful conclusion. On the other hand, this also marks the culmination of a unique competitive career. Over forty years, he competed in seven World Gliding Championships, each time with aircraft that he had significantly modified or – in the case of the Concordia – built from scratch.

His competition sailplanes included an ASW 12 with extended wingspan, a Glasflügel 604 with a modified wing-fuselage junction and wing airfoils (WGC ‘76, ‘78), an ASW 17 with additional inner wings of 1.5m span each (WGC ‘81), and an early ASW 22, again with increased wingspan and elastic covers on the flap gaps (WGC ‘83).

Following a 15-year career-related hiatus, he decided to gradually incorporate the technical advances that had since been made into his new ASW 22 DB (WGC ‘06). In addition to extending the laminar flow on the lower side of the wings, the newly built outer wings of 28-metre span required a longer fuselage and an adapted tailplane, which on this occasion were completely rebuilt with modern airfoils. His modifications were always thoroughly designed and validated by subsequent flight measurements. In addition, with the retractable tailwheel, optimised cockpit ventilation, and switchable turbulators, he applied detailed solutions that in some cases anticipated trends. In Gerhard Waibel, he had a sparring partner at his disposal who also assisted him with the masterpiece that followed. Nevertheless, all the testing and modifications were usually carried out by him personally.

His masterpiece is the Concordia (WGC ‘12, ‘14), which he always regarded as a team effort: Gerhard Waibel, Loek Boermans, Johannes Dillinger and Christian Streifeneder were his key partners who made irreplaceable contributions. Nevertheless, he was the visionary who conceived the concept and considered it feasible to build - a glider targeting a span of 28 m, an aspect ratio of 57.2, and a maximum wing loading of 62 kg/m² – a figure unmatched at the time. To illustrate, the inner wing of Concordia has less chord length than the inner wings of the most extreme 15m-Class sailplanes. This constitutes an enormous challenge for the structure and integration of systems that he took on with huge personal dedication and effort.

When Dick Butler entered the world of competitive soaring, the era in which individual glider pilots or clubs regularly built up-to-date sailplanes themselves, was already over. His ambition, technical expertise, and perseverance enabled him to preserve much of this former tradition. He has demonstrated that, with an organised and structured approach and a commitment to the cause, milestones in the design and construction of sailplanes can still be achieved by individuals today.