Sonja
Englert is an aeronautical engineer born in Germany. At 16 she started flying gliders, soon adding
motorgliders and airplanes to her ratings. While still at high school, she
worked as an apprentice at a German sailplane factory. She studied aeronautical
engineering at the University of Braunschweig, where she gained an equivalent of a Masters Degree.
During her time as a student she joined the Akaflieg Braunschweig, a group of
students who spend their spare time designing, building and flying sailplanes.
Sonja participated in building the high performance SB13 flying wing glider,
which made its first flight 1988. For the following project, the SB14, she
designed the composite wing structure as part of her thesis. As part of the
IDAFLIEG, she participated in several flight test camps, which are dedicated to
measuring performance and flying characteristics of gliders. The subjects of her
Akaflieg test projects were investigations of drag reduction and quantifying the
spin characteristics of gliders. As a highlight, in 1992, she won the National
Cross Country Soaring Championship flying the SB 11, one of the Akafliegs older
designs.
After completing her
studies, she worked as project engineer for a company in Switzerland, which developed an all-metal two-place acrobatic
trainer with bonded wing skins. The work included a full-scale wing fatigue
test, several static structural tests and flight testing including spin
testing. After accomplishing the Swiss and FAA certification, the project was
sold to Malaysia. Subsequently Sonja spent some time there to help
them start the production and assist with the local certification.
Back in Germany, she did the aerodynamic and structural design of a
composite replacement wing for Mooneys, which would allow a Mooney, through
extensive use of laminar flow, to fly about 20 kts faster on the same
horsepower. After completing the wing design, she moved to the Florida in 1996, where she worked on several engine
conversions, with the goal to increase propulsion efficiency and reduce cooling
drag. Extensive flight testing showed much improved performance over the
original designs. One project was the Teledyne Continental GAP
prototype Diesel engine, which was installed in a Cessna 337. She was further
involved with many STC projects and NASA funded research projects under the
AGATE program.
In 2001 she joined Adam
Aircraft to develop the A500, a composite, pressurized twin-engined airplane,
with a centerline thrust engine arrangement, as a powerplant engineer. She also
did the preliminary structural design of the tail and boom structure and the
front and aft engine installations.
After the initial design
work in Denver was completed, she moved to Oregon to join Columbia Aircraft (later Cessna) to work on
the Columbia 350 and 400 development as a DER
test pilot, powerplant engineer and flight analyst.
Currently Sonja Englert
works in Oregon as a consultant aeronautical engineer on a variety of
projects.
Sonja has accumulated >4000
h with a commercial airplane and glider pilot license, with instrument and
multiengine rating. She has flown more than aircraft 80 models, 40 of those
were gliders and motorgliders. Flight test work has accounted for more than 650
flights. She enjoys flying a homebuilt Pulsar and a motorglider.
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