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What are the fastest kitset or commonly homebuild piston engine designs?

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Battson

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Messages
610
Location
New Zealand
Just an interesting thought I've been mulling over, I guess these would be the commonly built racers for Joe public (when he can afford it) - some wild one-off design isn't really relevent to this post. But I am talking about cruise speed, rather than Vne.

Some designs that come to mind: I think the important characteristics are the speed and the power plant, as it's not hard just to use a bigger engine to get more speed. Also the altitude which they measure speeds at is relevant

Sharp - Nemesis NXT, Cruise about 300kts with IO-540-K (big block), excess of 320kts at MSL with IO-720
reno05_sport_42_2975.jpg

Lancair - Legacy, Cruise about 240kts for the longer winged version with IO-550 @8000ft.
Legacy_speedmod_lrg.jpg


Questair - Venture, Cruise about 240kts with IO-550-G, albeit a reasonable different looking aircraft in terms of dimensions.
21050d1354142571-interesting-aircraft-questairventure_1.jpg

Stoddard-Hamilton - Glasair III, Cruise about 240kts with IO-540-K, much more affordable than the aircraft above.
C-GGTM-Glasair-III-4.jpg



What else is out there?

I am aware of other composite designs like the Falco/Furio, the Harmon Rocket, RV-8, etc etc which come in under 200kts with various engines, but they are not compariable to the above in terms of straight line speed in a x-country cruise.
 
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