Glen,

Just to keep from forgetting how, I took the liberty of posting your drawing. My comments in no particuliar order. Months ago, I did a drawing very similiar to yours, as I thought maybe the canopy extending aft of the roll bar would make it so large as to be floppy. Turned out to not be an issue. As to making it into a slider, there are a couple of things to consider. The canopy support rails must be parallel. In this case, the fuselage sides are not. The rails can go inside the cockpit like the RV-8, or outside like the CX-4. The build is much more complicated. When your body parts start wearing out, it's nice to be able to grab the roll bar and launch yourself up on the wing. Hard to do with a slider. Yep, it's cool (in two ways) to taxi around with a slider. But once the canopy closes, the slider looses its cool with the canopy bow. I've had a Sonex, RV-3 and RV-4 and much prefer the unobstructed view that comes with the bubble canopy flopper. The Panther canopy has a taxi position, so there will be no lack of fresh air.

A VW? Sure! I've flown the Sonex with both an AeroVee and a Jab 3300. Differences? Climb rate and top end. And the biggest difference? Price.

Fuselage fuel? The original RV-3's had a 24 gal fuselage tank. The RV-12 has a fuselage tank. I'm guessing a roto molded fuselage tank wouldn't be a big deal for those not wanting to build wing tanks, but that's up to Dan.

And here's why things have been slow lately:



Wings are finished!

Tony