Designs

[chasgf]

I am knew to the forum but have been thinking about ....thinking about expermental plane design, has / are people looking at a conard style, larger than a Velocity but way smaller than the Avanti ll ? perhaps 6 seats in a club design, twin ?? Thanks !!
Charlie

[Hal Bryan]

Hi Charlie -

Welcome to the forum!

I know you said "larger than a Velocity", but, just in case... have you seen the V-twin?

http://www.velocityaircraft.com/airplane-models-vtwin%20-%20updates.html

I'm guessing you've already come across it, but, as I said, just in case. I had a very brief look at it at Sun 'n Fun - I'm hoping we'll see it here in Oshkosh this summer.

Regards -

Hal

[steveinindy]

has / are people looking at a conard style, larger than a Velocity but way smaller than the Avanti ll ? perhaps 6 seats in a club design, twin ?? Thanks !!

I know of someone in southern Indiana who is working on a design for himself, with no intention of selling the plans or a kit, that is something like what you're talking about. The reason for the "gap" between the Velocity series and the Avanti is largely because that niche is already well filled by traditional aircraft designs and the folks with the money to build something in that range tend to just buy a new or used Seneca, Baron or one of the other existing aircraft that are readily available. Less fuss, easier to insure and you get to fly straight away as opposed to spending three, four, five or ten years building something. Also, I've read and been told that designing a canard is more complicated than designing a traditional aircraft configuration. I have no direct experience but perhaps one of the aerospace engineers or aerodynamicists on the list can chime in and correct me if I'm wrong on this.

[chasgf]

I did not know about the V-Twin !! kinda exactly what I was pondering! Thanks !!

[steveinindy]

Hi Charlie -

Welcome to the forum!

I know you said "larger than a Velocity", but, just in case... have you seen the V-twin?

http://www.velocityaircraft.com/airplane-models-vtwin - updates.html

I'm guessing you've already come across it, but, as I said, just in case. I had a very brief look at it at Sun 'n Fun - I'm hoping we'll see it here in Oshkosh this summer.

Regards -

Hal

Hal, thanks for sharing that. It's a pretty airplane and I can't wait to see it in person. Now if you'll pardon me, I'm going to go wipe the drool off my chin.

[Hal Bryan]

I did not know about the V-Twin !! kinda exactly what I was pondering! Thanks !!

Great - glad to have been able to point it out!

Hal, thanks for sharing that. It's a pretty airplane and I can't wait to see it in person.

I wish I'd had more time with it at SnF - it really is striking, sort of a baby Avanti or Junior Starship, depending on your preference.

[steveinindy]

Great - glad to have been able to point it out! I wish I'd had more time with it at SnF - it really is striking, sort of a baby Avanti or Junior Starship, depending on your preference.

Either and/or both is any acceptable response right? ,,

[Eric Witherspoon]

One issue is the EZ / Cozy may not continue to just scale up - in particular, these don't have flaps. So the things flaps do - steeper descent angle, adding drag, lower stall speed - might become more important as the airplane gets bigger and heavier. The Avanti has flaps - but it's really a 3-surface aircraft - not canard only. The Starship, IIRC, also has flaps, but the canard articulates to varying positions to compensate. I believe the design for such systems, and their reliable duplication and rigging would be beyond the resources of smaller companies and individual builders - in short, without some sort of flap system, the scaling up of the configuration starts to be limited by runway length. It may be possible to design/build one with a 6-seat cabin + 2 pilots, but flying from 12500' runway to 12500' runway is going to limit the utility.Then again, this may be exactly the technological development that some company is working on right now that will bring such an aircraft to the market.