Autodidact
Well-Known Member
This would be a contest, but there are no prizes, and no places. All winners are equal to each other, and all losers are equal to each other as well. It's not mean - either you do it or you don't, and what kind of contest is that?
Anyhoo, the task is this,
a) design a pt103 legal ultralight
or
2) design an SSDR legal plane
using this 15 hp engine:
which can be had at Home Depot for 300 bucks and weighs less than 65 lb without the tank and cooling tin I would bet. I was going to say that there is an American made equivalent for which you can spend 150-200% more on, but I have no proof of that, I just know that Briggs, Honda, Generac and one or two others offer equivalent engines, and they're pretty reasonable compared to the v-twins, and they do run smoothly. The engine has to be used as is with only bolt-off mods, ie, take off the cooling tins, remove the choke from the carb(?), etc. The only bolt-on mod would be the prop hub, and it should be for the straight shaft rather than the tapered one if possible (cheaper). Light is better, so a lug on the prop hub and a bodged up bit for a drill can make a good starter.
How would you do it? Do you think it can be done? I would suggest simple and cheap materials because a multi-thousand dollar airframe for a three hundred dollar engine doesn't make much sense.
The rules:
No rules, submit an actual napkin sketch (scanned, of course), a full blown computer rendering, or just use words and numbers to describe an idea. Go...
Anyhoo, the task is this,
a) design a pt103 legal ultralight
or
2) design an SSDR legal plane
using this 15 hp engine:
which can be had at Home Depot for 300 bucks and weighs less than 65 lb without the tank and cooling tin I would bet. I was going to say that there is an American made equivalent for which you can spend 150-200% more on, but I have no proof of that, I just know that Briggs, Honda, Generac and one or two others offer equivalent engines, and they're pretty reasonable compared to the v-twins, and they do run smoothly. The engine has to be used as is with only bolt-off mods, ie, take off the cooling tins, remove the choke from the carb(?), etc. The only bolt-on mod would be the prop hub, and it should be for the straight shaft rather than the tapered one if possible (cheaper). Light is better, so a lug on the prop hub and a bodged up bit for a drill can make a good starter.
How would you do it? Do you think it can be done? I would suggest simple and cheap materials because a multi-thousand dollar airframe for a three hundred dollar engine doesn't make much sense.
The rules:
No rules, submit an actual napkin sketch (scanned, of course), a full blown computer rendering, or just use words and numbers to describe an idea. Go...
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