https://peertube.dngr.us/videos/watch/ff430f70-32cf-436a-833a-89ac6025fb04 This 42-second video taken in 1991 shows the PIK-20E Sailplane landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert. NASA 803 was the designation of this PIK-20E sailplane flown at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center (now Armstrong) at Edwards, CA, between 1981 and 1991. It was used as a research aircraft on projects calling for high lift-over-drag and low-speed performance. In recent years, NASA 803 had been used to study the flow of fluids over the aircraft's surface at various speeds and angles of attack as part of a study of air-flow efficiency over lifting surfaces. The single-seat aircraft, with a wingspan of just under 50 feet, was used to develop procedures to collect sailplane glide performance data in a project carried out by Dryden for the Soaring Society of America. It was also used to develop control systems for remotely piloted vehicles, for stall-spin and wake vortex studies, and to study high-lift aerodynamics and laminar flow on high-lift airfoils. NASA 803, built by Eiri-Avion in Finland, was a fiberglass sailplane with a two-cylinder 54-hp engine. In this unique configuration, it took off and climbed to altitude on its own. The engine was then shut down and folded back into the fuselage and the aircraft was then operated as a conventional sailplane. The construction of the PIK-20 series was rather unique. The factory used high-temperature epoxies cured in an autoclave, making the structure resistant to deformation with age. Unlike today's practice of laying glass over gelcoat in a mold, the PIK 20 was built without gelcoat. The finish was the result of smooth glass layup, a small amount of filler, and an acrylic enamel paint. There were 160 copies of the combined 20 and 20B models produced, and 178 of the 20D. Series production ended around 1978, although this motorglider version (PIK-20E, a PIK-30 with 17-m wings) was produced for a few years afterward. Mirrored from YouTube: https://youtu.be/px7Xr1oyHkU Original channel: NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:00:53 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://peertube.dngr.us https://peertube.dngr.us/lazy-static/avatars/ec5edb1e-3795-4978-be4f-c67e98fbc992.png https://peertube.dngr.us/videos/watch/ff430f70-32cf-436a-833a-89ac6025fb04 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://peertube.dngr.us/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.