There are certainly lots of older posts on this dream, but since it is something that interests me I figured I would start fresh again.
1. What features would you want?
2. What would you limit your size to?
3. Realistically how small of engines could you use to accomplish this?
For me,
I like the look of the Dornier Seastar.
Amphibious.
Would like 6' standing room in cabin but not a deal breaker.
After furnishings and fuel would want 4 adults + 2 kids + gear... say 1500lbs w/ full fuel.
Nose to tail.
Nose sleeps 2 with access under the panel.
Cockpit.
Club seating for 4 with plush reclining seats and fold out tables. (seats can fully fold down to sleep 2 more if needed)
Small (tiny?) galley with fridge/microwave/sink, and a little bit of storage.
Lavatory.
Tail sleeps 2 with access in hall past lavatory.
Purely theoretical at this stage and no idea about weights or engines, perhaps 2x mazda engines if I could pack all the rest into light enough package but I doubt it.
I've run across autoreply's suggestion of a large fuselage a couple of times reading through the archives and would be particularly interested in his thoughts on the topic.
1. What features would you want?
2. What would you limit your size to?
3. Realistically how small of engines could you use to accomplish this?
For me,
I like the look of the Dornier Seastar.
Amphibious.
Would like 6' standing room in cabin but not a deal breaker.
After furnishings and fuel would want 4 adults + 2 kids + gear... say 1500lbs w/ full fuel.
Nose to tail.
Nose sleeps 2 with access under the panel.
Cockpit.
Club seating for 4 with plush reclining seats and fold out tables. (seats can fully fold down to sleep 2 more if needed)
Small (tiny?) galley with fridge/microwave/sink, and a little bit of storage.
Lavatory.
Tail sleeps 2 with access in hall past lavatory.
Purely theoretical at this stage and no idea about weights or engines, perhaps 2x mazda engines if I could pack all the rest into light enough package but I doubt it.
I've run across autoreply's suggestion of a large fuselage a couple of times reading through the archives and would be particularly interested in his thoughts on the topic.
I've long been impressed by the Wilson Explorers.
Done a lot of conceptual, but no detailed design work. I am convinced a good composite design which is amphibian and fairly large (12 ft wide by 7 ft tall, both outside dimensions) with such a configuration, having a clean, high-AR wing, mounted on a pylon can exceed C182 performance on every single parameter, notably stall and take-off speed.
The area around the pylon is certainly dirty, flowwise, but the rest of the airframe and the wings outboard do keep the potential for very low drag.
A big advantage of such a push-pull setup is much smaller systems between the two engines. Having said that; I'd still put two small engines in the leading edge.
Another big advantage of such a pylon wing, whatever the engine position is that you can keep all power systems (fuel, engines, valves) in the wing and thus simply rotate the whole wing to fold it away. Bit advantage, especially for long-range planes.
Once you go for more than just the pylon, you're most certainly loosing out to a shoulder wing.