Hi Y'all

[Oiseau]

Yep..... A gin-u-wine southern flyin nut here. Tryin to scratch another project off the ole bucket list. Building my very owe aeroplane from scratch. And to make it even more fun I'm gonna try doin it by lookin at pictures and drawings and figuring it out the "Jeffro Bodeen" way. Cause we all knows that naut goes inta naut naut times..... and so on. I mean after all we don't get to be double naut spies on just our good looks, we have to have unchangeable brains too.

It would be nice if Uncle Jed would give some of his money to build my flyin mochine but he said "that if man was ment to fly he would have be born with feathers." So what I think I'm gonna do is take the engine outa the old truck and put it in the aeroplane and soup it up some. I been whitleing down some logs I got out in the back for what ya call props. And I can take one of Granny's big wash tubs and put wheels on it to use as the body. I just gotta come up with somein to use as wings.

Anyway more on that later
Double Naut 3 1/2 out for now

[SheepdogRD]

Welcome aboard!

If you design and build your plane from scratch, you have a long road ahead. Building from plans is a shorter schedule; the plans don't cost much, considering how much effort and expertise goes into them. Building from a kit -- with plenty of flying examples -- is a far shorter schedule yet.

What you choose depends on your budget and what you really want. If it's gotta be your design, you're on the right path. If you aren't experienced at aircraft design, plans is likely a better route. If you're more interested in flying than designing and building, a kit makes sense. And if all you want is to fly, there are some fairly low-cost airplanes and some simple kits that will get you into the sky faster.

[Oiseau]

Well Sheepdog... it really isn't so much of a think it up a try to fly it cause I'm a nut but not "nuts" ya know haha.

I actually have a couple of people with me on this journey, one is an aero-space engineer and the other is a master mechanic I have years of work with fiberglass and resins and composites as well as design and blueprinting.

We are taking a canard design and trying to stretch it a little to add more room for a little more cargo so it can be used as a non profit transport plane for a group I'm involved with.

Budget is a factor. I can't believe how much people want for planes these days, then the annuals, and up keep, and the fuel. That's why I'm looking to build, I can then do my own inspections and repairs, I can even use "off industries" parts.

[SheepdogRD]

Agreed... that's what got me to build a Just Highlander from a kit. The plane I wanted doesn't exist in the certified world, and maintenance in that world can be crazy expensive. I had the time, and didn't have a deadline... I just wanted to build and to fly. I wanted a plane that could travel and carry a load, but still fly slowly enough to land safely in my sister's unlevel farm field. That effectively eliminated low wings, canards, and most aircraft outside of the fat-tire world. I like the strength of the steel tube fuselage -- no worries operating off airport. My Highlander will max out a little over 100 mph, and it'll carry significant cargo. It has a Yamaha Apex engine, and will burn 4 to 6 gallons an hour; it doesn't require avgas.

What kind of specs are you planning?

[Oiseau]

We wanta carry rescue animals to and from shelters around the country to even out the load so I have to beef up the useful load capabilities. I like the canard configuration (at least in theory never flown one yet but if I don't like it that means I can build something else cause I got the wife on board because of the animals ) The power plant I'm planning is a 6.0 Chevy stock engine. That's where the mechanic comes in he'll tear it down to the bear bones and go back thru it as he's putting it back together. there's a couple of tweaks that he's told me about that will pull better performance and higher gas mileage (?) gph. And fun thing is everybody is always complaining about heat or air condenshing for the cabin..... I can have what's factory installed in the truck I pull this out of. Duel climate control even.

I will have to stretch the cabin a bit for the cages and a couple of rear facing seats for the attendants and build in a cargo door but I think I can get that done on the main wing, pilot side and just keep it close to the main spars for strength.

Okay I layed out the basic idea....rip it apart.... I need the reality check.

[SheepdogRD]

I have no canard experience; still, I don't see canards as cargo planes. I have to admit that the Beech Starship the Piaggio are people haulers, but they're rare.

If you'd like to fly sooner, you should probably stick to something designed by someone else, and simply add your own powerplant. Do note that, unless there are others successfully using the engine system you propose, you're probably going to spend a lot of time debugging the installation.

For the kind of use you're planning, you probably want the equivalent of a Cessna 206 or 207, which are popular in Alaska as freighters.

The Chevy 6.0 has a cast iron block so you'll lose a lot of cargo weight by using it. Here's an option (from Motor Trend): "The LS2 was essentially an aluminum version of the 6.0L truck block with flat-top pistons, LS6 heads, and an LS1 cam." That might be a better choice.

LS aluminum block/head engines are flying in some experimental aircraft. There's a company that builds an LS for replacement of the O-320 or O-360.

Two issues to consider in using automotive engines are (1) getting a successful gearbox installation, and (2) having to use aviation fuels containing lead (because very few airports have lead-free automotive fuel).

You might look at the Robinson LS3 conversion. Here's a pusher version being installed on a Republic Seabee (pic from General Aviation News).

https://generalaviationnews.com/2024/01 ... more-push/

[SheepdogRD]

One of my favorite airplanes is Dean Wilson's Private Explorer. It's hard to find much information on it, and apparently impossible to get plans, but it seemed ideal for hauling a lot of stuff with economy and decent speed. Dean Wilson's best-known design is the Avid Flyer, which is the ancestor of the Highlander as well as the Kitfox, Ridge Runner, and a bunch of other designs.