A small fantasy...

For years, I have always desired to build my own airplane. I had looked at Van's RV-9A, an all-metal two-place kit plane that has pretty good performance, and I had also looked at (more preferably) the Glasair Super II-FT, which is fast, and is all-composite.

But my heart was set on canard designs, like the planes that made Burt Rutan famous. The Vari-Eze, and the Long EZ, both composite aircraft, have tandem seats and a bubble canopy. And both have a very nice property of flight. Both wing surfaces (stabilizer and wing) provide positive lift, as opposed to a "conventional" wing placement, where the stabilizer in the back provides negative lift. The canard design allows for better stability, and better efficiency. Though it hasn't caught on in mainstream aviation (the closest was the Beech Starship, which production didn't last long). Even so, this concept, as old as powered flight itself (the same used by the Wright Brothers for, of all things, stall prevention) allures me.

Maybe it is because the first time I flew in a GA airplane was my Young Eagles flight back in 1999, in a Rutan Long EZ.

I had looked at many designs. In my ideal airplane, I would want a fuel-efficient design. I would also want speed. I also want a lot of range. Well, as far as fuel efficiency goes, I would probably build a Cassutt 111M racing plane. If I wanted speed, I'd ditch the Cassutt and go for a Lancair Legacy. But, if I wanted range, I would probably go to a Lancair IV, or something comparable.

Now, I forgot to add something. Part of that fantasy was building a plane of my own design. Back to the canards! Although I have no engineering knowledge, I have ideas. I have many ideas that can be translated to a full-scale aircraft.

I know (in theory, not in practice) how to build composites using foam, fiberglass, and epoxy. I also know that the ideal powerplant for my airplane would be something small, not exceeding 80 horsepower, using a fixed-pitch pusher propeller.

Again, I'm no engineer, but I have doodled on paper what this plane would look like.

My love of canards had me researching designs from World War II, and I was captivated by the Kyushu J7W1 Shinden. Though the design had only 45 minutes of flight time (the project was cut short because of the war's end), the original design held a lot of promise, with jet engines and rocket propulsion in the design's future. I had an idea.

Why can't I build a one-seat personal cruiser, with a bubble canopy, just a little bit of storage space (probably large enough to only carry a rolling bag small enough for a carry-on, and a flight kit), with computer displays instead of steam gauges to save weight, with plenty of range (north of 1300 nautical miles), and speed (so the bladder will allow you to see the aircraft's full potential). The aircraft will be small, with folding wings (allowing it to be towed to your garage, not hangar), and simple compartmentalized systems. My idea is to build an airplane that is easy to build, easy to maintain, and affordable to operate (one of the reasons why some pilots opt to build rather than buy).

My aircraft, which I arbitrarily designated the NE-20 (NE for Newball, and 20, because all my drawings and ideas were aligning to a common design when I turned 20). I temporarily called it "Shinden" because of its slight resemblance to the original (though now, I'm considering renaming the plane "Calisto", because changes continue to be made to the design).

Before, I wanted something that could literally fit the cockpit of an F-16 inside. But, I scratched that. I visuallized my body in a small cabin, leaning back by about 35 to 40 degrees, legs forward, just like in an F-16, or more aptly, in a Focke-Wulf FW-190 (the pilot sits reclined for better G tolerance in high-G maneuvers). Not for high-G tolerance, but a reduced "frontal profile" that would require a larger canopy and fuselage (you're not as high when you're reclined, versus sitting upright).

Putting the proper instrumentation in a tiny panel was a predicament. But with the advent of glass cockpit systems, and computer displays, you can have the same amount of information in a typical "six-pack" in one small screen, in much the same way a modern business jet or airliner would have. Plus, with a young guy like me, I would prefer glass over steam gauges anyway. A full EFIS unit would cost about the same as a bundle of similar analog instruments that would portray the same information. It costs less to maintain an EFIS system as well.

I had estimated the cost of materials, tools, avionics, and instruments to amount to roughly $20,000. The engine would be either the ULPower UL260, or Rotax 912, both topping out at 85 horsepower. I was also considering using the Wilksch Airmotive diesel, but with the cost of jet fuel where it is (normally about $2 above 100LL), I opted to stay with avgas engines.

It's a small fantasy. But, who knows. Maybe I'll run into a lot of cash, buy half the inventory of Aircraft Spruce and Specialty, and build this plane in the garage...after I get an aeronautical engineer to "attack" my design, and find faults with it (I'm sure there will be many).