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Polen Special, anyone?

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Mac790

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
1,525
Location
Poznan, Poland
I just checked out our archives, and I'm really amazed because we don't have a discussion about such a great plane.

Just a short description for people who haven't heard about that plane before.

Polen Special was designed and built by Mr Dennis Polen, back in 60/70's, first he approached several aircraft manufactures with his design, but all of them rejected it. So he decided to make it by himself, and he did.

Specification:

Engine: Lycoming TSIO-360
Horsepower: 200 hp
Length: 19’6”
Height: 4’10”
Wing Span: 21’5”
Gross Weight: 1,500 lbs.
Max Speed: 345 mph
Cruise Speed: 325 mph
Service Ceiling: 28,000 feet

His design clearly reminds me Busby designs, similarity to the Midget Mustang is obvious (pic1, 2), actually it looks like a enlarged Midget Mustang, with retract gears, wings shape and airfoil are also very similar to the Busby Mustangs. It's really amazing that with only 180/200HP, this plane can cruise at 325 MPH. On the Mr Lednicer web page, I found that airfoil at the root and the tip, is same 65A212, but I haven't found any info about potential wing twist, for example both Busby Mustangs have different airfoil at the root and at the tip (which is rather obvious for tapered wing shape), it confuse me a little bit.

I was wondering, does anyone thought about building something similar to this (Please note it's only theoretical, hypothetical question, I'm aware it won't be an easy task, and it will require some specialist help) , I address this question special to the war-birds fans, for example if I had to chose between building something similar to the Polen or some kind of Mustang, Spitfire replica, I would choose the first one.

I'm aware that this plane probably isn't the most practical plane, it's single person, not enough place for baggage, not enough range for cross country flying unless you live in Europe :), countries here are much smaller.



For more info about this plane
http://www.polenspecial.com/polen_special.htm
or here
Flutter Analysis of the Polen Special II Racing Aircraft Spring 2003



Seb
 

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