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My Flycycle - barely more than a sketch

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Tiger Tim

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2013
Messages
7,061
Location
Thunder Bay
Have you ever had a song stuck in your head and trying to ignore it only makes things worse? I had that the other night lying in bed except it was an airplane design on my mind, a sort of simplified semi-scale thing that was inspired by a bunch of threads and brainstorming elsewhere on this forum for the last few years. The outlines and general just-for-fun nature are based loosely on the Piper Skycycle, specifically this fairly imperfect model of it:
1206.jpg


So anyways, I was lying in bed picturing different small details and how they might possibly integrate together in some elegant way when I realized I’d be spending the weekend away from home in a hotel in a city essentially on pandemic lockdown. I was going to have plenty of time on my hands so why not fumble through some actual design and maybe even a little amateur engineering if I make it that far. For the trip I’ve printed off AC 103-7’s appendices as well as Beaujon’s book and I’ve bought myself a note book to scribble in.

In my mind this little plane is centred around a single large aluminum tube with a rollover/style bar over the top and the pilot sitting totally exposed. Flying surfaces are all aluminum tube at this point and the wings either strut or wire braced, TBD. I was thinking of a modern paramotor power plant. Anyways, the whole point of the exercise is both to kill time and to better understand the process and what compromises have to be made. I figure anyone can draw pictures and project fantasy numbers based on what they want; I’m interested here in what actually can be done, at least so far as I can get from the limited resources I’m using.

Anyways, without further ado here’s the first sketch of the Flycycle 103:
FD4BAEFF-A269-4458-949C-4872BB67F696.jpeg
 
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