About Jim Marske
Jim has always been in Aviation all his life. From the age of 5, he was passionate about building and flying. In his early years he had built a variety of different types of model airplanes, from simple designs powered by rubberband to more advanced gasoline powered models. From model building in preteen years to restoring full size Aircraft by his late teens. By the time he reached the age of 16, he had taken a strong interest in soaring and by 19 the flying wings. His first flying wing design (the XM-1) built at 19 was inspired by the works of Charles Fauvel and Al Backstrom. Jim found the scale models of the unswept tailless wing concept to be superior to conventional designs. The initial designs of XM-1 and Pioneer I were of wood and composite construction.
At the age of 37, Jim built the Pioneer II with the intent to address the needs of amateur glider builder. The Pioneer II had a more simplified structure and increased performance. Jim continued to experiment with composites with the goal of complete elimination of wood from the structure. By the age 39, Jim completed his first almost fully composite aircraft, The Monarch. Over the next 20 years, Jim shifted his focus to designing high performance, low drag airfoils to achieve lower sink rate and increase the speed range of the aircraft.
In 1992, he teamed up with John Roncz as principal designers for the company Group Genesis which developed the aircraft Genesis I. Ttwo years later, the Genesis I became the first successful semi-flying wing aircraft ever built. In 1997, Jim finally found the high quality Carbon Rod that he had been searching for that increases the reliability of the wing spar and subsequently reduce the overall weight. Later that year Jim and the Genesis team built the Genesis II, the first aircraft to use GraphliteTM Carbon Rod in a production Aircraft. Jim is currently working on the Pioneer III, a tailless, all composite, lighter aircraft. The Pioneer III is approximate 100lb less than the Pioneer II and should have 20% reduction in drag, juas an end result should the Pioneer III should evolve into an excellent sailplane that can perform well in weak lift conditions.
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