I was disappointed a few weeks ago to see so few posts about Wil Schuemann's passing. Perhaps because Wil had not been active in soaring (to my knowledge) for some years, I suspect many soaring pilots don't appreciate just how much influence he had on
our sport.

As his Hall of Fame writeup notes, he was a "brilliant engineer, skilled craftsman, and irrepressible perfectionist." That inspired/drove him to develop the Schuemann Libelle 301, the "Schuemann box" total energy/gust filter compensators that so many of
us grew to rely on in the 1970s, and the Sage variometers I still see in top pilots' panels today. Also still seen are the swept back outer wings that Wil experimented with, ultimately chopping off sections of his ASW 12's wings to prove the concept.

I met him in the mid-60s when I was still a kid. He and two partners brought one of the first Libelle 301s to our Memorial Day contest in Richmond, Indiana. One year he showed up experimenting with minimum weight. Having chopped out every possible
superfluous bit of weight, he would remove his shoes and hand them to his crew before launch to save a few ounces (I don't know how much of this was for show; Wil knew how to develop an image). A year or two later--in a pattern he would exhibit many
times--he had swung from one extreme to another and gone all-in on super-heavy mode. He had found a company that would extrude 25-foot lengths of 4" flexible plastic tubing that he used to build water ballast tanks holding (IIRC) 240 pounds of water.

The Schuemannized Libelle, of course, was a marvel and went far beyond the airfoil change that most of us recall: sharpened fuselage nose, chopping the canopy to add a permanent section behind the pilot's head, wing root fillets (extensively developed,
not eyeballed), ventilation air intake using the landing gear doors, ventilation air exhaust in the tail (also extensively tested to ensure it was truly in a negative pressure area), and a pneumatic vario modified to indicate optimum flap setting. I saw
other Libelles with the leading edge mod but the only one that seemed have been done with Wil's enthusiasm and care was JJ's.

As an engineering student in the early 70s, I was privileged to have some fascinating discussions with Wil at contests and later over the phone when I was outfitting our new LS3 in the late 70s. I was intrigued with his "flaps as speed control" system
for his ASW 12. He walked me through how to set up our LS3 to fly it (mostly) that way when thermaling and cruising and I loved the results.

He also described how he had laboriously drilled tiny holes in his Libelle and injected dye during flight to locate transition and separation points on the wings and fuselage. Almost as fascinating to me were his stories of using an ex-military high-
speed camera to diagnose failure modes of the tail chute on his ASW 12 and then debug it and the second chute he installed aft of the wheel for approach control.

Wil always had time to answer my stupid questions about how to configure one of his "Schuemann boxes" for odd situations. His guides for leak checking glider pneumatic plumbing systems and tuning varios as well as the syringes and connectors needed
remain in my toolkit today.

We had some interesting discussions about his ASW 12 at the 1982 Elmira 15 Meter Nationals, which is probably the last time I saw him. I kept in touch for a while as he moved around the country looking for the ideal place to live. Concerned about molds
and spores in the environment, he tried moving 200 miles north of Minneapolis. He was also very interested in the effects of stress and allergans on the body and kept detailed logs to develop insights about their impact on his health.

Later, in another wild swing, he moved from Northern Minnesota to near Houston. I think he passed through Washington State and ended up in the Reno area. When we spoke last, he was excited about his gun barrel, which he had developed--similar to the way
he had developed his soaring innovations--through careful thinking and extensive (probably exhaustive) experimentation and observation.

He once told me one of his objectives was to make a living as an inventor. He apparently succeeded in that. Show up at any large contest today and evidence of his legacy will be there, whether in swept-wing gliders, Sage varios, or simply the kits many
of us carry to diagnose instrument plumbing leaks.

Wil was a quiet, fascinating character. He took nothing for granted in his search for ways to innovate and improve. I don't know that he got rich with his inventions but they seemed to allow him to have fun in his chosen ventures and develop a fiercely
loyal customer base.

He was an excellent pilot, though I think he was frustrated that the analytical approach he brought to bear on other challenges didn't yield similar results in soaring contests. Because of his unremarkable contest record as well as the number of years
that have passed since most of his innovations were au courant, I fear many soaring pilots, if they recognize his name at all, think of him as a curiousity from bygone days. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Chip Bearden
JB

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[snip] ..Wil always had time to answer my stupid questions about how to configure one of his "Schuemann boxes" for odd situations. His guides for leak checking glider pneumatic plumbing systems and tuning varios as well as the syringes and connectors

needed remain in my toolkit today.

Chip Bearden
JB

Thanks, Chip, for these remembrances. A long time ago I was looking at a Ka6E whose owner thought its having a "Schuemann Box" was a clincher selling point. "Pure magic". As I recall this one appeared to be sealed so the innards were inaccessible for
some reason. Just what was in that box and was it fine-tunable at all? If anyone doubts his influence, just go to the Soaring Mag site, open one of the archived issues from say any month in 1983 and run a "find Schuemann" search. Amazing the number of
ships for sale that had been "Schuemannized" in some manner.

Phyllis Dee

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Check out the February, 1983 issue of Soaring magazine for Wil's (cover) article detailing how he arrived at the kinked leading edge:
Wil Schuemann, A New Wing Planform with Improved Low Speed Performance (Feature Articles) [Sailplane Design; Sailplanes\Schleicher\ASW 12], page 16

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On Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 7:03:09 PM UTC-4, [email protected] wrote:

[snip] ..Wil always had time to answer my stupid questions about how to configure one of his "Schuemann boxes" for odd situations. His guides for leak checking glider pneumatic plumbing systems and tuning varios as well as the syringes and connectors

needed remain in my toolkit today.

Chip Bearden
JB

Thanks, Chip, for these remembrances. A long time ago I was looking at a Ka6E whose owner thought its having a "Schuemann Box" was a clincher selling point. "Pure magic". As I recall this one appeared to be sealed so the innards were inaccessible for

some reason. Just what was in that box and was it fine-tunable at all? If anyone doubts his influence, just go to the Soaring Mag site, open one of the archived issues from say any month in 1983 and run a "find Schuemann" search. Amazing the number of
ships for sale that had been "Schuemannized" in some manner.

Phyllis Dee

Many older East Coast pilots will remember Tony (P4) Benson. He had a Schuemann Box in his ASW-20. In his words, it was "designed by a frustrated Swiss cuckoo clock maker, but it was magic to behold in the air." When it was giving him trouble,
he actually managed to find a local, very elderly clock maker who took on the repairs as a project. It worked, but soon after the newer electronic gizmos including the ubiquitous M-Nav began to take over. Tony religiously hung on to the Schueman
Box until well into the 2000's.

P3

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On Monday, April 11, 2022 at 2:26:30 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:

On Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 7:03:09 PM UTC-4, [email protected] wrote:

[snip] ..Wil always had time to answer my stupid questions about how to configure one of his "Schuemann boxes" for odd situations. His guides for leak checking glider pneumatic plumbing systems and tuning varios as well as the syringes and

connectors needed remain in my toolkit today.

Chip Bearden
JB

Thanks, Chip, for these remembrances. A long time ago I was looking at a Ka6E whose owner thought its having a "Schuemann Box" was a clincher selling point. "Pure magic". As I recall this one appeared to be sealed so the innards were inaccessible for

some reason. Just what was in that box and was it fine-tunable at all? If anyone doubts his influence, just go to the Soaring Mag site, open one of the archived issues from say any month in 1983 and run a "find Schuemann" search. Amazing the number of
ships for sale that had been "Schuemannized" in some manner.

Phyllis Dee

Many older East Coast pilots will remember Tony (P4) Benson. He had a Schuemann Box in his ASW-20. In his words, it was "designed by a frustrated Swiss cuckoo clock maker, but it was magic to behold in the air." When it was giving him trouble, he

actually managed to find a local, very elderly clock maker who took on the repairs as a project. It worked, but soon after the newer electronic gizmos including the ubiquitous M-Nav began to take over. Tony religiously hung on to the Schueman Box until
well into the 2000's.

P

Wil gave us swept back wings. His gun barrels were likewise products of a brilliant mind and highly sought.

He put both his kids through medical school on a modest income and was a demanding dad.

On a trip home from the annual contest at Chester, SC in the 70's the family stopped for dinner at a restaurant. When they were leaving the cashier said the gentleman who had been sitting next to them had paid their tab because he was so impressed by the
kids polite, attentive behavior at the table.

They were frequent visitors at Eagle Field and the basement door frame still has penciled height marks for the young Karl and Sonya.

Karl Striedieck

PS. Wil wasn't afraid to swim against the tide, but that trait may have been his undoing. He refused to take Coumadine and died of a stroke.

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