Cul de' Sacs and Taylorcrafts

[VictorBravo]

Re: Cul de' Sacs and Taylorcrafts

$4-5million... it'll be awhile. Love to Patti and Kelli Belle.

I still think the DCO with 0-200 and 20-26 gallons of fuel is the winner.

You could do the same thing on the T-craft that Ford did with the Mustang and the Thunderbird, and VW did with the Beetle. A bigger, better, badder vehicle that was built with the visual styling cues to leave no doubt in the public's mind where the DNA came from.

My vision was a Wortmann or other efficient airfoil, and a composite molded fuselage about 10-15% bigger in the cabin, and a composite leaf spring landing gear. But still a 36 foot span, 5 foot chord, and the famous "pumpkin seed" fuselage shape. There's a Suzuki/Geo car engine conversion called "Raven Redrive" that makes 90 or 110 horsepower using a reliable belt drive and uses about 3 gallons of car gas an hour. The kicker is that the new carbon rod material called "Graphlite" would allow the airframe to be built at least 10-15% lighter with far greater strength. Commercial pre-preg skins are now commonplace AND FAA approved for transport category airplanes... the engineering and testing is all done.

Another kicker is that the new CNC modeling and machining ability can blast out a set of production molds in a day's time each or less. The "resin infusion" or "resin transfer" method saves at least 10-15% in resin costs (one of the big costs in composites) even further AND speeds up production. Basically all you'd have to do to become a little more cost competitive is make some kind of a deal with a large aerospace concern to buy their pre-preg materials at a discount for materials approaching the time-out date that they cannot use anymore.The Sparrowhawk glider is made this way I believe, and costs less than the equivalent European glider.

Sure it might cost the same $4-5 Mil in startup costs (although I truly believe less), but the final product would be less time/labor intensive to build. It would have better performance and appeal to American pilots who revere the classic airplanes of the past.

And of course... "having a CG Taylor inspired airplane without any involvement from Harry Ingram... PRICELESS!"

[taylorcraftbc65]

Re: Cul de' Sacs and Taylorcrafts

and appeal to American pilots who revere the classic airplanes of the past.

And of course... "having a CG Taylor inspired airplane without any involvement from Harry Ingram... PRICELESS!"

The only problem IS, that if I want a prepeg ship with outstanding L/D, (and I could AFFORD one), I'd own a Nimbus 4. If I wanted a classic airplane of the past, I already HAVE one, it's my 1940 BC-65, built with 1940 technology.
Brie

[Forrest Barber]

Re: Cul de' Sacs and Taylorcrafts

many people were interested in buying the place back during the last financial trouble , I talked with many of them , many different ideas , some scams, some wanting only to exploit local economic development money , Oh Well !

[flyguy]

Re: Cul de' Sacs and Taylorcrafts

I wouldn't mind putting together some light weight, current technology parts for our present aircraft. It could really go for a super-lightweight tailspring and tailwheel assembly. I'm sure there are other areas we can think of that would reduce weight significantly. Reduce drag and weight with better lighter parts, that appeals to me.
DC

[taylorcraftbc65]

Re: Cul de' Sacs and Taylorcrafts

I am not against some improvements to the design, after all, I'm putting luscombe dual exhausts on my engine, and I fly with a Garmin 196 in the plane.
I draw the line at new prepeg laminer flow airfoils with a totally new fuselage profile. If someone wants to build a plane like that fine, but just don't equate it with the pre-wars I have grown to love so much. Brie

I wouldn't mind putting together some light weight, current technology parts for our present aircraft. It could really go for a super-lightweight tailspring and tailwheel assembly. I'm sure there are other areas we can think of that would reduce weight significantly. Reduce drag and weight with better lighter parts, that appeals to me.
DC

[VictorBravo]

Re: Cul de' Sacs and Taylorcrafts

I wouldn't mind putting together some light weight, current technology parts for our present aircraft. It could really go for a super-lightweight tailspring and tailwheel assembly.
DC

There's a guy back East who makes buggy springs in composite. One of those cut in half appeared to be almost a perfect replacement, saving three pounds or so, no corrosion, etc. The new carbon material I mentioned before would be a natural if you were going to make a mold and form a new spring over the mold. You could probably get an equivalent strength leaf spring down to 1.5 pounds using that stuff. As far as saving a lot of weight on a tailwheel, you'd have to be wrapping carbon tow around some sort of a perforated thin wall steel sleeve or something to hold the pivot bushing. I suspect there's less weight to be saved in the tailwheel yoke than the spring. In order to make a lighter yoke, you would have to be spreading the loads out over a larger area (meaning a bulkier tailwheel) because composites are not as good in point loads or fastener loads.

[Larry Lyons]

Re: Cul de' Sacs and Taylorcrafts

Brings back memories of Herb Kime from Mt Carroll, IL. He has since went West but built a midget Mustang that took a trophy for workmanship at Oshkosh many years ago. I used to stop in to say Hi once in awhile and once when I went in he was building a tail wheel yoke for his Mustang. He did not like the boughten ones as they were made of solid metal so he spent two weeks fabricating a hollow one too save less then a pound when all done. But what a work of art! His comment was a pound in the tail was worth a lot more up front when done. The whole plane was that way. He went on to rebuild a factory Pitts, and passed while working on another low wing speedster that went up for sale on Barnstormers last year. I believe it was Poulson (sp) or something like that. He was in to all out speed, so he went to great lengths to keepem light!
Larry