is this our aviation counterpart?

http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/

ONly if they can land it in the Hudson

And the EAA and AOPA would be NASA and SCCA.

www.eaa.org

www.aopa.org

And all pilots are enthusiasts.

Wicked

I think this is more our speed.

Or this...

I was always partial th a biwing called an Easy Riser.

http://www.ultralightnews.com/antulbg/easyriser_ultralight.htm

My crappy car builds can be pushed to the side of the road, ultralights..... ?

Ultralights make me a bit nervous. There are far more deaths in ultralights than in regular light planes.

I used to hang glide in the 80s. USHGA divorced itself from utralights back then because the FAA was threatening to make anything that left the ground have a licensed pilot aboard.

With a motor you don't acquire the same skills as non-motorized folks. I do miss it.....

Dan

My old neighbor built a factory five Cobra a few years back. His second project? You guessed it. He built a plane in his garage. He was one smart fellow.

I've heard that in the lightweight plane circles, the Swift GTi engine is more popular than it is here.

Subaru engines are also fairly popular. However, they tend to prefer the NA versions.

Carson wrote: Wicked

Wow, that's frickin' awesome!

That looks like the Dragonfly, uses a bug engine. Light, fast (for it's cost of use), and (for an airplane) inexpensive.

http://www.affordaplane.com/

looks like the locost of the ultralight world.. with new parts airframe for well under $3k add motor and fly.

I think that is actually a Quickie Q2, designed by Burt Rutan. If you want to see some crazy original designs look up some of his, sort of a Colin Chapman of the aviation industry.

The Q2 is a crazy efficient design, 140 mph on 64hp!! At about 1.5 gallons an hour, that's right, over 90 mpg!

Apexcarver wrote: http://www.affordaplane.com/ looks like the locost of the ultralight world.. with new parts airframe for well under $3k add motor and fly.

Something intimidating about a gas can strapped to the back of your seat.

So this thread has got me dreamin of flying again...did some research online at work (ya, its been kinda slow at the hospital lately) and saw that just in 2004 the FAA signed the Sport Pilot and Light Sport Aircraft rule. Some of the planes that fit this category are pretty sweet and look like a blast to do some flyin in. None of that fancy airline flying, but more like leisure and sport flying... Visions of having open air races and the equivalent of autox (airx (?)) have been floating around my head here at work....would be pretty awesome!

http://www.iconaircraft.com/index.html http://www.nemesisnxt.com/kit/index.php

Too bad I cant post pics at work but the ICON A5 looks book!!

I did some searching and that "four-winged" one is a Quickie Q200.

Another favorite of mine is the Velocity which you can get in a kit:

http://www.velocityaircraft.com/airplane-velocity-kit.html

^^^I like that!

Don't know if I'd quite trust myself to put together a kit plane, though. I usually end up with leftover washers and bolts after just basic car maintenance...

That type of aircraft is known as an “equal area canard” and there have been three armature built designs based on it:

Quickie – Single seat, 18 – 22 hp

Dragonfly – Two seat, 64 hp VW conversion

Q200 – Two seat, 100 hp Continental

As mentioned, the configuration is fantastically efficient (the Quickie topped out at 125 mph, I’m not sure about the Dragonfly, and the Q200 topped out at 195 mph). Additionally, practical design issues such as visibility, engine cooling, ease of entry / egress, etc., were very favorable.

So why isn’t the equal area canard the configuration of choice today???

First, highly critical laminar airfoils were used which have excellent L/D ratios but are very sensitive to variation…anything from construction imperfections to water droplets to bug splats can greatly reduce the maximum angle of attach the wing can handle before stalling.

So, some of the speed advantage should ignored as its coming from airfoil selection rather than the unique equal area canard configuration.

Second, all of these aircraft had pretty high wing loading and no flaps so takeoff / landing speeds were relatively high even on a good day…on a bad day when your wings are dirty, you’ll need to come in like a rocket to avoid stalling.

Third, although placing the main gears on the canard’s tips reduces weight, drag, & simplifies construction, any variation on the runway such as ruts or rocks will produce an enormous torsion force on the aircraft that will put it at jeopardy of ground looping.

Bottom line…once the aviation community became aware of these characteristics, the design fell out of favor and although “fixes” for both dirty wing stall and ground looping have been implemented, too much of the initial advantages had to be surrendered in the process to make the configuration sufficiently appealing to overcome its bad reputation.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time working on the “fixes” myself for over a decade now. My original strategy was to move the tail wheel forward so that it would have much more authority. I even contacted the SST Team which holds the world’s land speed record as their vehicle employs the same unique means of stability & control that I envisioned for the aircraft and to my surprise, they actually responded to me with advise.

Ultimately, I found what I consider to be a more eloquent solution that resulted in the design morphing into something so dissimilar that you wouldn’t even see the connection to the original equal area canard configuration unless I walked you step-by-step through the iterations.

Luke wrote: ^^^I like that! Don't know if I'd quite trust myself to put together a kit plane, though. I usually end up with leftover washers and bolts after just basic car maintenance...

Don’t sell yourself short Luke…remember, the Titanic was built by experts and the Ark was built by an armature.