Sisu Sailplane

SISU

The Sisu (seesoo) is a competition sailplane developed by Leonard A. Niemi. Niemi's design was inspired by the 1951 flight of Richard Johnson where he flew 547 m in an RJ5 sailplane. The RJ5 was made of laminarflow wings that were engineered to work most efficiently at low speeds. Niemi utilized these laminarflow wings when designing the Sisu. The first flight took place in 1958 and because the results proved exceedingly successful, Niemi decided to produce them as a readytofly craft with some modifications. Ten were made with the last Sisu 1A being made in 1965. Alvin Parker broke the distance record on 31 July 1964 when he became the first to fly over 1000 Kilometers.