I had a ridiculous idea the other day. I was thinking about the ever increasing cost of general aviation, and what would be the cheapest way to get in the air. Ultralights were the obvious answer, but those have there own issues. Many of them aren’t trailerable, so you need to either rent a hanger space or tie them down and let the forces of nature have their way with it. They have no practical range or speed, and the safety record isn’t great. Many airports, including my home airport, are in surface area class E, so inaccessible. Even then ultralights can easily be in the $15-$20k range, and paying nearly Cessna 120 prices for what essentially amounts to a glorified kite just feels wrong. An E-AB such as an N-numbered Legal Eagle or Pietenpol is another good cheap option, but still limited by the need for a hanger. And time is money so how much are you really saving if you spend hundreds of hours over the course of several years building something from scratch, as so often happens with homebuilts?
In all of my exhaustive searches through Barnstormers and Facebook marketplace, I keep thinking back to my gliding days. A quick search through the Wings and Wheels website provides a stark reminder of the financial difference between powered and un-powered flight. Airworthy gliders can easily be found below $8k. As of writing this there’s even a nice looking Schempp-Hirth Standard Cirrus listed for just $6,500 OBO. Gliders are trailerable, so no hanger fees, and annuals and insurance are far cheaper. The obvious downside: no thrust. That’s where my ridiculous idea comes in.
Imagine a self contained power pack that could clamp to the wing and provide thrust without modifying the aircraft structure in any way. A small engine such as a Rotax 185 such as what was used on Lazairs, or even a paramotor engine could be fixed to an airfoil shaped clamp that would wrap around the wing root, similar to a glider wing wheel dolly (see pic.). A flexible bladder fuel tank (or tanks) could occupy the space where the water ballast would normally be stored. The only modification I could see being necessary would be a small hole in the wing skin to allow for the fuel line and electronic engine control wires. Maybe a strip of speed tape as well with a raised bead that runs the length of the airfoil on the outside edge of the clamp that would prevent the clamp from sliding outboard. The inside of the clamp I foresee being rubberized to provide grip and vibration dampening. The resulting twin engine motorglider would be relatively cheap, trailerable, efficient, and if you replaced the water ballast with the same weight in fuel minus the weight of the engines, it would have incredibly long range. You could also fly it with the engines off as a standard glider.
Honestly the biggest challenge I foresee would be legal in nature. From a technical standpoint this would be pretty easy to do.
Obviously this whole description is a gross simplification of the actual engineering that would need to go into a project like this. But my question to you all would be: on a scale from 1-10 just how ridiculous is this idea? Are there any deal-breaker technical issues with this concept that I overlooked?
And most of all, is this even remotely possible from a legal standpoint? Would this need STC’d, would an STC even be feasible for something like this, or would it would be possible to reclassify a certified glider as experimental exhibition? If someone was indeed brave/crazy enough to try this, how would one go about it legally?
In all of my exhaustive searches through Barnstormers and Facebook marketplace, I keep thinking back to my gliding days. A quick search through the Wings and Wheels website provides a stark reminder of the financial difference between powered and un-powered flight. Airworthy gliders can easily be found below $8k. As of writing this there’s even a nice looking Schempp-Hirth Standard Cirrus listed for just $6,500 OBO. Gliders are trailerable, so no hanger fees, and annuals and insurance are far cheaper. The obvious downside: no thrust. That’s where my ridiculous idea comes in.
Imagine a self contained power pack that could clamp to the wing and provide thrust without modifying the aircraft structure in any way. A small engine such as a Rotax 185 such as what was used on Lazairs, or even a paramotor engine could be fixed to an airfoil shaped clamp that would wrap around the wing root, similar to a glider wing wheel dolly (see pic.). A flexible bladder fuel tank (or tanks) could occupy the space where the water ballast would normally be stored. The only modification I could see being necessary would be a small hole in the wing skin to allow for the fuel line and electronic engine control wires. Maybe a strip of speed tape as well with a raised bead that runs the length of the airfoil on the outside edge of the clamp that would prevent the clamp from sliding outboard. The inside of the clamp I foresee being rubberized to provide grip and vibration dampening. The resulting twin engine motorglider would be relatively cheap, trailerable, efficient, and if you replaced the water ballast with the same weight in fuel minus the weight of the engines, it would have incredibly long range. You could also fly it with the engines off as a standard glider.
Honestly the biggest challenge I foresee would be legal in nature. From a technical standpoint this would be pretty easy to do.
Obviously this whole description is a gross simplification of the actual engineering that would need to go into a project like this. But my question to you all would be: on a scale from 1-10 just how ridiculous is this idea? Are there any deal-breaker technical issues with this concept that I overlooked?
And most of all, is this even remotely possible from a legal standpoint? Would this need STC’d, would an STC even be feasible for something like this, or would it would be possible to reclassify a certified glider as experimental exhibition? If someone was indeed brave/crazy enough to try this, how would one go about it legally?
