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Mountain plane

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Starman

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 16, 2009
Messages
2,011
Location
High in the Andes Mountains
Hi everyone. Now that I've sold my aluminum vette engine and moved to the Southern Ecuadorian mountain wilderness I've started to think of what kind of special plane would be possible to use around here.

It has special needs due to the location it's designed for. There are no small airports around here, only big airliner ports in far away cities. I live in the mountains, very close to the crest of the Andes mountain range, at 7000 feet. There are no flat areas, only narrow ridges and steep slopes. There are times when it is calm, but there are frequent winds and wild wind gusts, that gets pretty serious during the dry (windy) season. I have a small flat area excavated on a local ridge/mountain top but it's exposed to the highest wind gusts there.

In order to fly in an area like this the following kind of aircraft is required.

This would be somewhat like an ultralight, a light weight single place plane of simple construction.

It has to take off and land at 20 mph or less.
It has to have a very fast roll rate even at low speeds.
It needs to have a very steep angle of climb and be able to nearly hang on the propeller(s).
It needs to have very reliable propulsion.
It needs to have great stability be stall proof, and have great ease of handling.
Long range is not needed.

There is a design I've come up with that should work well but I'm wondering what kinds of suggestion there are (besides "don't try it") concerning this type of mission requirement.
 
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