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When the BD-10 was announced, it was billed as the world’s first and only supersonic jet kit aircraft. The SubSonex is quick in every way, and that includes the kit! Our jet is sold only as a Quick Build Kit to ensure that pilots with the motive, means and opportunity to own and operate a very, very light jet can be successful. We want you to make the SubSonex a reality for your flying life in the shortest possible time with a streamlined, easy construction process. The SubSonex Personal Jet concept was first unveiled at AirVenture in 2009. After successful pairing with the PBS TJ-100 engine, the SubSonex JSX-1 prototype achieved first flight in August 2011 and completed a successful flight test program in 2012.
But if you’re tenacious and realize you may sped DOUBLE your original estimate, have at it! We’re highlighting the CH 650 in part because it’s become a little overshadowed by the high-wing CH 701 and 750 designs. Zenith says the 650 will cruise at 155–160 mph true airspeed at 8000 feet on around 100 hp. Like most Zenith models, the 650 can use a wide range of engines, with support for the Jabiru 3300, Rotax 912S, ULPower, Continental O-200 and Lycoming O-235.
STOL CH 750 Super Duty
The company has had its ups and down, but it’s still here. The latest engines represent 20+ years of production experience, and the airframe 25+ years. As for my J250-SP, the flight characteristics are extremely docile, especially in stalls. In fact, when I’m due for a biannual review, I make sure to remind my flight instructor, Daniel Wotring, not to expect any kind of break, just a descending nose-up mush and the stall horn blaring.
That said, if there were a contest for two-seaters to see which one holds the most popcorn or ping-pong balls, the Jabiru would win hands down. Knowing that I’d be retiring in a couple years, I consulted my wife, The Violinist, about ways that I could avoid becoming a living room vegetable when I no longer had to go to work every weekday. I already had an RV, and after three sheet metal airplanes, I was ready for something different.
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I totally stripped it, recovered it, painted it, and learned to fly in it. I knew my dream of a WW-I plane had to be a taildragger, so it was the natural plane for me to choose. During all those years, I went to many airshows and just stood in slack-jawed awe watching the warbirds being flown. The cost of owning and flying any kind of warbird was totally out of reach for a middle-school math teacher. By 1988, I had refined my ideas to the point where the detail design of what would become the Facetmobile started in earnest. We began cutting metal in early 1989, 17 years after the picture of N555A on the Air Progress cover first caught my attention.
Choosing a new set of plans, a new kit, or a finished airplane that is new to you is an important decision—one that is full of excitement as well as a big financial and lifestyle commitment. At KITPLANES, we maintain a directory that is as broad as we can make it, listing airplane designs that are new and those that are old so that you have the big picture of experimental craft. Giving you this broad perspective is important; we want you to know as much about your choices as possible so that once you have settled into the cockpit of your new aircraft, the excitement never goes away. Post your questions and comments on anything related to building wooden airplanes. Plane and Pilot builds on more than 50 years of serving pilots and owners of aircraft with the goal of empowering our readers to improve their knowledge and enthusiasm for aviation. Plane and Pilot expands upon the vast base of knowledge and experience from aviation’s most reputable influencers to inspire, educate, entertain and inform.
Bearhawk Aircraft Introduces 6-Place Aircraft
The Beachner Special, the Durand biplane and the Polliwagen. I think a total of seven or eight of those airplanes—combined—were ever finished. I grew up building surfboards and had helped a friend rebuild a few VW engines, so when the Q2 came along, I was all over that.
I wanted to do the experiment and prove that it worked. To do that I had to both design and build the airplane. The airplane was well known to me as it had been maintained its entire life by Aberle Custom Aircraft, which tamed some of the usual angst about how it had been built and maintained . I knew better…but it had a 540 up front that I swore I could hear breathing when I stuck my head in the hangar. It wasn’t anywhere close to boring, Aberle Custom Aircraft was there to help, and the price was set to sell—now.
And speaking of wings, the Dakota Hawk has the option of folding feathers. The airplane is primarily wood but comes with Dacron fabric and Stewart adhesives in base form. Byron Poppenhagen’s Baby Ace with an O-200.The Baby Ace, a long-distance cousin of the original Corben designs of the late 1920s, is in many ways the quintessential early homebuilt. This parasol-wing, open-cockpit “flivver” mounts a Continental C-85 up front, though several variants of Continental’s popular flat-four up to 120 hp will go, and provides a breezy 100-mph cruise. Top speed is just 10 mph greater, but it probably feels like a lot more with the wind rushing by your ears. With a gross weight of just 950 pounds, the Baby Ace is LSA legal.
At about 30 cubic feet, it’s not only enormous for a Light Sport Aircraft , it’s enormous for any two seat airplane. As one might expect, the space is, shall we say, density sensitive. Gross weight and center-of-gravity limits are obviously governing factors.
We’ll guide you step by step on the journey of building one of the most versatile, safe and quality aircraft on the market. Our kit aircraft are built in a factory that maintains Part 23 standards. Craftsman quality exists in every part that Kitfox manufactures. AUSTIN, TEXAS, MAY 17, 2021 – Bearhawk Aircraft announced today the first flight of a Bearhawk Companion, side-by-side two-place aircraft. The Companion is a utility aircraft with backcountry flying...
Three versions, the B, C and D are differentiated by landing-gear design and the shape of the tail. John Thorp’s T-18 is nearly 60 years old, but it continues on with Thorp Central as the S-18. It’s also unusual in the homebuilt world for having an all-flying stabilator tail—something Thorp had experience with during the development of the Piper Cherokee. Wing area is just 86 square feet, giving good wing loading for the 1600-pound max gross weight. A similarly sized Van’s RV-6 weighs the same but has more wing.
For that, you’ll have to forego the quickbuild options on the 7. Van’s helps you with this decision on the RV-3 and -4, since there are no quickbuild options. There are other benefits to maintaining simplicity.
I roll and pitch aggressively on nearly all flights but don’t need tiddlywink aerobatics. Zooming up and over the clouds on sunset flights is glorious, and the big engine means you don’t have to look at your watch to see if anything is happening when you lay on the loud lever. Cross-country stability is excellent, and the world looks great framed by those two wings and crossing stainless steel wires. These modifications are not ones I would recommend to a first-time builder, at least not the flap change, because such changes tend to complicate and extend the building process. My previous planes were all built according to the plans, although I did later switch my first GlaStar to conventional gear from its original tricycle configuration. It is only now, on my fourth project, that I am customizing things from the beginning.
