In the 1930s Erwin Musger was a prominent Austrian glider producer. His first two-seat design was the
gull wing Musger Mg 9, which set a world duration record in 1938. The Oberlerchner Mg 19 was a post-
World War II development of the Mg 9, financed by the Austrian industrialist Joseph Oberlerchner, with a
mid/low rather than
high wing. The change of wing position was principally made to enhance the upwards view from the rear seat, which on the Mg 9 was blocked by the wing. The wing roots are carefully
faired into the fuselage to avoid airflow turbulence and the 10° of
dihedral on the inner third of the span takes the wing tips well clear of the ground, even though the outer panels had only 2° dihedral. Like the rest of the Steinadler, the two part
cantilever wings is wood framed and covered in a mixture of
plywood and
fabric. Each part is built around a single spar, with ply covering ahead of it around the
leading edge forming a D-shaped torsion box. Behind the spar the wing is fabric covered, except for small areas near the root and near the tip, where the
aileron hinge angles in towards the spar, that require strengthening. On the earliest model, the Mg 19, the ailerons fill the
trailing edge from bend to tip but such a large area produces heavy control loads and on the Mg 19a the ailerons are reduced in length by about a third.
Schempp-Hirth airbrakes open above and below the wing just inboard of the bend at 44% chord. In plan the wing has a straight and swept leading edge. The trailing edge is also straight inboard of the ailerons, where the tips become semi-elliptical. A 1° sweep at one quarter chord produces a swept spar to allow the two ends to meet just behind the rear seat. On the later models the gull wing is replaced by one with a constant 5° dihedral without altering the tip ground clearance, though the clearance with extended airbrakes is small. Otherwise the wing of the Mg 19b is unchanged. The wing of the
World Gliding Championships contending Mg 19c is different, with straight tapered outer panels, small
tip bodies and a section which is a blend of the
laminar flow NACA 64-2015 airfoil and the older, proven Göttingen 549. The Steinadler's fuselage has
oval frames and slender
longerons skinned with ply. Moving forward, it becomes deeper from behind the wing trailing edge and under the cockpit, where the two occupants sit in
tandem. The rear seat is a little higher than that of the pilot for better forward vision and both are enclosed by a framed
canopy divided into two parts, each of which is starboard hinged. A skid runs along the fuselage underside from nose to under mid-wing but the main undercarriage is a fixed, semi-recessed,
monowheel, fitted with a brake, assisted by a sprung tailskid. The fuselage of the Mg 19a and later Steinadlers is some longer than that of the Mg 19. The whole horizontal tail and the rudder are fabric covered, the former straight tapered and round tipped, mounted on top of the fuselage ahead of the
fin. The trailing edges of the
elevators are ahead of the rudder hinge, with a port side
trim tab. On the Mg 19b and c there is a low
fillet ahead of the fin, not present on the earlier models. The fin is narrow, with a swept leading edge and the
unbalanced rudder is D-shaped and broad. The Mg 19 made its first flight in November 1951. Including all models, 47 were built. All but one were built by Joseph Oberlerchner's
Spittal factory. The exception is the Mg 19s, built by students in
Graz, which had a long development time from 1956 to its first flight in 1960. With a steel framed fuselage and new wing it was quite different from the other Steinadlers and, in the view of one author, "not really a Mg 19 at all." ==Operational history==