To recap the OP's criteria:
Do they fly with you now in rental aircraft? If you invite them to join you in day trips or overnights in a rented C172 and they are not enthusiastic, then maybe a VP-2 as a single-seater might be all you need.
I also think that pilots tend to like tandem seating, non-pilot passengers not so much, so it might be worth sending them both up for joyride in a Cub or something to get their opinion.
That said, looking at your criteria especially useful load then I would look at more than two seats, ideally three and more commonly four.
One plane you might consider is the Peña Dahu (also here) from France. It's a straightforward wooden taildragger designed for mountain flying that can be built as a four-seater with 180 hp and about 1100 lb useful load or kept light and spartan as a roomy two-seater with a 120 hp and about 660 lb useful load. Here's a nice album from a sightseeing flight in the Alps in one such plane with a couple of the photos below at reduced size. It does not meet the folding/removable wing criterion, but there are very few homebuilts with more than two seats that do.
Cheers,
Matthew
- <$40k good, <$20k better
- Build time on the shorter side, say 2k hours or less
- Primarily wood and fabric construction
- Two seats minimum, tandem preferred but not required
- >500 lb useful load OK, >600 lb preferred (pilot alone is 275 lb)
- LSA fine but not required
- 50-150 kt cruise speed
- >100 mile range, >200 miles preferred
- 4-stroke engine
- >Removable or folding wings preferred, ideally only doable by one person
- No significant modifications/redesign required
- Looks are irrelevant (yippee, he likes Volksplanes!) ;-)
- Taildragger OK, grass field operations
Do they fly with you now in rental aircraft? If you invite them to join you in day trips or overnights in a rented C172 and they are not enthusiastic, then maybe a VP-2 as a single-seater might be all you need.
I also think that pilots tend to like tandem seating, non-pilot passengers not so much, so it might be worth sending them both up for joyride in a Cub or something to get their opinion.
That said, looking at your criteria especially useful load then I would look at more than two seats, ideally three and more commonly four.
One plane you might consider is the Peña Dahu (also here) from France. It's a straightforward wooden taildragger designed for mountain flying that can be built as a four-seater with 180 hp and about 1100 lb useful load or kept light and spartan as a roomy two-seater with a 120 hp and about 660 lb useful load. Here's a nice album from a sightseeing flight in the Alps in one such plane with a couple of the photos below at reduced size. It does not meet the folding/removable wing criterion, but there are very few homebuilts with more than two seats that do.
Cheers,
Matthew
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