Spaceship 2 amphibian

[billyvray]

Found this on social media. Looks neat.

 

[BJC]

Clearly designed to permit social distancing.

What is hanging from the ceiling at 2:38?


BJC

 

[nerobro]

So lets start with the videos:

and

"Spaceship 2 was designed and built from scratch in under two years by legendary Australian Aircraft Designer Steve Cohen. The aircraft is built entirely out of composite materials. It is powered by a Rotax 912, 100HP engine and it cruises at 85Kts @ 75% power. It is registered with Recreational Aviation Australia as an amateur built aircraft."

And.. this is all I've got. I"d love to know more about the plane. The designer. Is he around here? Does he have a website?

What I can tell, is it's homebuilt, it's composite, it's a flying boat. It looks like it's got room to sleep two, and it's performance seems... good.

I've not been able to find a thing more. Do any of you know more?

... I love the concept here.

 

[lear999wa]

What is the general thought about such a configuration. A liftingbody with a close coupled t-tail.
I would think that it might suffer potentially from deap stalls at high angles of attack do to blanking of the horizontal stabilizer. Also as the angle of attack increases, the fuselage would be producing an increasing percentage of the total lift. With an ever increasing angle-of-attack wouldn't the center of pressure of the lifting body also move forward. Potentially even forward of the center of gravity.
Your thoughts?

 

[narfi]

reminds me a little of something I drew a few years back,

2016 - Flying RV

I'd love to hear Wainfan's opinion on using a blended wing/body (Facetmobile, etc) technique to achieve this 'flying RV' (motorhome) goal. I've got no idea how well it would scale up, but his entry in the NASA PAV competition does talk about how a 'fat' design can reduce structural mass so much...

www.homebuiltairplanes.com

 

[Victor Bravo]

Well, this old washed up glider pilot can see about 5-7 knots of forfeited cruise speed just by watching the first video.

A "legendary" designer who took the time to build a nice smooth composite wing certainly ought to understand the value of aileron gap seals.

 

[Dana]

Mod note: merged two threads on the same subject.

 

[TarDevil]

Also as the angle of attack increases, the fuselage would be producing an increasing percentage of the total lift. With an ever increasing angle-of-attack wouldn't the center of pressure of the lifting body also move forward. Potentially even forward of the center of gravity.

At 85 kts?
I'm ignorant, just asking.

 

[Speedboat100]

I like it....first serious lifting fuselage in years.

 

[Pops]

Large trim change with power change with the large trim drag, etc, etc.

 

[Hephaestus]

Long read: Soaring and exploring with Steve Cohen | Swellnet Dispatch | Swellnet

www.swellnet.com

There's a couple construction shots bottom of this article in the comments. It's designed as a flying houseboat.

 

[bmcj]

Well, this old washed up glider pilot can see about 5-7 knots of forfeited cruise speed just by watching the first video.

A "legendary" designer who took the time to build a nice smooth composite wing certainly ought to understand the value of aileron gap seals.

In all fairness, it looks like the aileron gap might be sealed by a piano hinge on the upper surface and the flap appears to have a bit of a Fowler style that seals while retracted.

 

[Victor Bravo]

In all fairness, it looks like the aileron gap might be sealed by a piano hinge on the upper surface and the flap appears to have a bit of a Fowler style that seals while retracted.

Yes I did see that it was a Fowler/slotted flap, and I did see the dark shadow in the aileron gap that could have been an upper seal or a piano hinge.

I looked at the smooth and slightly cambered lower wing surface and made an assumption it was a reasonably clean airfoil, and the gap on the bottom (of the aileron) was just a huge parasite drag source in and of itself, even separate from any loss or disruption of the lift distribution from "leakage".

There of course may be some worthwhile reason for what he did, and I'd have to sit down and eat crow . Friese effect is still no excuse for a 2 inch gap in the surface with the ailerons neutral.

 

[Riggerrob]

I like it....first serious lifting fuselage in years.

Yes, Mr. Cohen's Spaceship 2 reminds us of Thomas H. Purcell's Flightsail VII which first flew in October 1970. The biggest difference was that Flightsail floated on two separate pontoons, one under each fuselage side ... sort of like conventional dual pontoons found under many bushplanes. A few other designers tried Brunelli-type seaplanes, but none got very far. I suspect that their bellies slammed into waves. ?????
Purcell offered plans for a few years ... if anyone has a copy of Purcell's plans, are they willing to sell them to me?

Cohen seems to have solved the slamming problem with a shallow V hull. We wonder what size of waves Cohen's creation can handle. ????

Spaceship 2 seems to copy its empennage from some recent Russian light flying boats. Stepping between those dual fins makes for easy alighting onto a dock or beach ... way easier than most other flying boats.

 

[pwood66889]

Has anybody visited Mr. Cohen for a first-hand squint? Where's he at??

 

[Hephaestus]

Has anybody visited Mr. Cohen for a first-hand squint? Where's he at??

I think we're supposed to answer "Aussie Aussie Aussie!!!"

And wait for a response

 

[Victor Bravo]

I suspect that the airfoil shape of his fuselage would definittely benefit from eliminating the shallow vee hull and step, and replacing it with four retractable Convair (and Rutan) style skiis. This would (hopefully) get the ship out of the water a lot faster/easier than the step, and leave a cleaner more functional "airfoil". Most importantly it would allow for some shock absorbtion or spring in the skiis, allowing the takeoff and landing to be smoother in choppy water.

 

[BBerson]

Looks flawless.

 

[n6233u]

I wonder if it can be scaled up, that would make for a sweet 4 seat plane with 150 hp.

 

[Speedboat100]

I wonder it flies in ground effect like the Boeing Pelican was supposed to ?