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Planes !
shadow boxer
The Finger Painter & Master Ranter
in Zocalo v2.0
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tJuO16hRTk[/url]
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59s72vYQqsI[/url]
I'm buying an 801, the slightly larger cousin to this lil beastie.
They remind me of Starfuries, "Ugly but well hung."
Anything that takes off at a little over 35 mph has GOT to be cool. By their very nature, they are inherently safer with such an incredibly low stall speed, in fact, the 701 and 801 don't really stall at all, they just sorta drift down, (after watching some guys do a sort of vertical sideslip, I believe it).
I've bought the engine. I'm sorting out a prop and gearbox, then, onto the actual kit itself.
I'll have 220hp or so, which is 40 over the recommended power requirement. I'm thinking that perhaps I'll just install a ski ramp on the roof of my house... who needs a bloody airstrip...:D
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59s72vYQqsI[/url]
I'm buying an 801, the slightly larger cousin to this lil beastie.
They remind me of Starfuries, "Ugly but well hung."
Anything that takes off at a little over 35 mph has GOT to be cool. By their very nature, they are inherently safer with such an incredibly low stall speed, in fact, the 701 and 801 don't really stall at all, they just sorta drift down, (after watching some guys do a sort of vertical sideslip, I believe it).
I've bought the engine. I'm sorting out a prop and gearbox, then, onto the actual kit itself.
I'll have 220hp or so, which is 40 over the recommended power requirement. I'm thinking that perhaps I'll just install a ski ramp on the roof of my house... who needs a bloody airstrip...:D
Comments
After that video, that would be an awesome short distance commuter plane if you had a house well off the beaten path
Jake
You got a garage I can borrow for... for.. a year or two ? :D
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Seriously, I will probably end up going to the factory at some point to start proceedings with them, I'll have to drop by and say hello if thats ok with you. :)
A little history. My dad is a private pilot, aircraft mechanic and inspector. He owns a 1960 Cessna 150 Swayback. He got it in his head he wanted to build a kit plane. He met a guy at Oshkosh (the 2nd largest Airshow in the world) who had designed and built a 2/3 scale P40e Warhawk kit plane.
So my dad bought the kit, found himself an engine, started building pieces. He was almost done building the kit, most of the plane was put together, he was just working on the control surfaces. The guy he bought the kit plane from crashed his and was killed.
Now granted, your talking about a kit plane from a factory, so its going to be less fabrication, more pre-fab and it will be held to a manufacturing spec. It still makes me a tad uneasy though.
The best thing about kit planes though, they aren't as expensive. Its flying for less.
This is one of those things that irritates me though. This the part of my life where I look back at my childhood and say, "Idiot". The group of pilots my dad knows there in southeast Wisconsin, included at least two instructors. I had the opportunity to get my pilots license and all I would have had to pay for is fuel. But no, I had to be the stupid teenager. Thats probably the biggest thing I regret.
You got a garage I can borrow for... for.. a year or two ? :D
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Seriously, I will probably end up going to the factory at some point to start proceedings with them, I'll have to drop by and say hello if thats ok with you. :)[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately that's near my hometown, not where I live now (which is about 2 hours away). If you happen to come through St. Louis on your way through to Mexico, Missouri, drop on by. As far a garage, nuuh buddy, that's all mine...
The funny thing is, the new development to which we are moving is directly across from a small regional airport, if I had a plane (and a pilots license) I could almost walk from my house to the plane...
Jake
I have exactly the same regret. I still intend to correct it as soon as I have the money and the time, but both those things seem so far away...
not to mention its ME who builds it, ME who sees it go together, ME who knows exactly what I'm flying... to me, thats vastly superior in the peace-of-mind stakes than any ammount of paper work from the CAA for a plane a good deal older than I am.
Personally, I'd trust that paperwork that your aerospace agency gives you over a kit plane. For something in which a single broken weld can cause catastrophic failure, I trust the agency that specializes in the safe operation of hundreds, if not thousands of similar models to verify mine as safe enough to fly.
When it comes to flight, it's not just your individual safety that you worry about, but that of the other pilots in the air, their passengers, the people on the ground. There's a lot that can go wrong, and in a populated area, your aircraft (even at low speeds) could pose a significant threat.
Also, specifically in the case of the 801. It's stall speed is 37mph. In the event of a total engine failure, the survival rate of the occupants is significantly higher than any existing certified light aircraft* simply because it can fly much, much slower. Simple physics, hitting something at 40mph is much better for your health than hitting something at 80mph.
There are many hundreds of Zenith Aircraft flying, hundreds of Sonnexes, hundreds of RV1s, thousands of 'kit planes'.
Also, the G ratings, as tested are equal to, or higher than that of certified aircraft. You'll find Sanfam, if you do your research, there is a very healthy chunk of the kit airplane sector which make planes better than certified ones in many respects, taking advantages of the advances in technology, materials science and manufacturing methods which certified aircraft simply haven't the opportunity to do so because of the stifling certification processes and bureaucracy. It's indeed a bitter irony that the rules designed to make aircraft safer, hinder the progress of designing and building safer aircraft.
Ask anyone in the aviation industry about the Lycoming saga...
In short Sanfam, I'm suprised you side with the cobwebbed fogies.
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*aside from those fitted with a BRS chute [url]http://www.brsparachutes.com/default.aspx[/url]
Anyway, that minor point aside, [i]every[/i] plane is subject to wear and tear, whether it was kit-built or not. What really matters is how well you maintain it.
Kit airplanes, on the other hand, rely on the competence of the person building the kit, and you can't tell me that there are that many competent amatures out there :)
My dad is a A&P mechanic by trade, he works for an airline. For years as a kid I heard what those aircraft go through. They literally tear those planes apart till there is nothing left but frame and rebuild them every so often, just to make sure everything is ok.
Anyways... All that being said there are a ton of other aircraft out there classified "experimental" that are flying, many with no problems too. For those who don't know, pretty much any kit plane or plane built by someone other than a major manufacturer is classified experimental, so its not as crazy as it sounds. The air show in Wisconsin in Oshkosh, the one that is now the 2nd largest air show in the world is hosted by the EAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association. Tons of kit planes fly up there every year. Get out a map, its actually quite funny. The 2nd largest air show in the world is hosted by a city with a population of roughly 65,000 people and has an airport that considered a municipal airport. The population of Oshkosh is tripled during the week of the air show. If you have never been and care anything for aviation, then at least once, you have to go to this air show.