Brett Loewen wrote: > 1. Are you able to simply extend the wings to meet the stall speed of 51 mph for a sport pilot?
>2. Would the additional weight of a Corvair engine (compared to a VW) have too much of an effect on stall speed to be able to consider? >3. Can I build the fuselage before making a final decision on whether or not I need my aircraft to meet the sport pilot operating limitations? ---------------- This is not so complex a question, but the answers are! 1. Sure, it's simple to extend the wings and get to 51 mph, but if you want to retain exactly the same spar strength, you'd have to do some re-engineering of them. Personally, given that I've seen how strong these spars are, I'd do it without further concern for the spars, especially since you will have to keep the plane light as well (within reason...you could add a thousand pounds to the plane and 30' of wings and all bets would be off!). 2. No, almost the same answer as above...the extra Corvair weight can be compensated for by more wing area, and more spar re-design, but it would obviously be too fast for Light Sport then! I'd stick with the VW and be happy with it if I wanted to fly Light Sport, but that decision could be made later too. 3. Sure. There's a simple equation for stall speed that involves the lift coefficient of the airfoil, density of air, weight of the plane, and wing area. You can juggle all that stuff and figure out how much wing area you need based on your weight, and therefore the length and planform. If I were going to build an obviously KR-like airplane and make it meet Light Sport, I'd be prepared to show the FAA guy or DAR that equation to prove my point. Otherwise, a guy armed with the same equation and a tape measure could quash your dreams... -- Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com http://www.n56ml.com
