Kit Quartet

The Experimental Aircraft Association's Oshkosh convention is always a fertile time for kit makers to introduce new models, but the 1992 meeting seemed ever more significant. This time, a host of new kits bowed, and the news came down that many of these airplanes (in addition to a few existing designs) could be eligible for certification as production models. Because such a program has been in the works for a year or more, many of the new models reflect each manufacturers' intentions of jumping headlong into the production ring. But they also reflect some of the changes in the kit market, away from super-specialized niches and onward to the great middle ground.

Among the significant airplanes are the Avid Magnum, Kitfox Vixen, Lancair ES, and Tri-R KIS. Also showing strongly as production contenders at Oshkosh: Aero Designs' Pulsar XP (reviewed in the August Pilot), the Van's Aircraft RV-6T (seen in the October Pilot), and the Cirrus VK-30 (covered in the April 1990 Pilot).

With the new models spewing forth at such a stimulating rate, we decided to take a closer look at four models we have not previously flown.

Lancair ES

If there are any better arguments than the Lancair ES that current kit makers are moving ever closer to the mainstream, let's hear them. Lancair International calls the new ES a made-in-fiberglass replacement for the Cessna 172s and 182s of the world. It's backing up that claim by pushing toward production status of completed airplanes under the newly introduced simplified certification rules. Current kit price is $33,900, and the projected price for the finished, certified airplane is $129,000.

Though based on the Lancair IV's four-place fuselage, the ES is a significantly different airplane. Its construction is less expensive pre- preg fiberglass. Interior dimensions are identical to the IV's, with a 46- inch-wide cabin at the front seats; cabin height is listed as 48 inches.

Power comes by way of a Continental IO-360 of 210 horsepower, rather than the 350-hp turbocharged TSIO-550 of the IV. Aft of the firewall, the ES's differences from the IV continue with a wing sporting 40 percent more area (up to 140 square feet) and a horizontal stabilizer and elevator with 50 percent more area. Maximum gross weight is 2,850 pounds and, combined with an estimated empty weight of 1,650 pounds, gives the ES a useful load of 1,200 pounds. Full of fuel (73 gallons' worth), the ES still can be loaded with 762 pounds of people and possessions.

Where the Lancair IV's handling qualities can require a deft touch thanks to its low power loading and high wing loading, the ES is strikingly benign. The larger tail helps provide excellent longitudinal stability, and the airplane seeks trimmed airspeed very well, although probably not as tenaciously as the strongly pitch-stable Cessnas. Attempting a power-off stall in the ES results in little more than a bobbing of the nose and a 500-feet-per-minute descent. Roll control in the stall is positive, and response in cruise is quick.

With just 60 percent of the IV's power, it's no surprise that the ES doesn't provide nosebleed-inducing climb rates; initial climb was a measured 750 fpm at 100 knots indicated from 1,000 feet msl. In the ES prototype, Lancair has raised the top of the panel compared to the IV, and the result is poor visibility during climb-out; the company will be shipping lower panels when kit production begins early in 1993. Also, the nosewheel arrangement will change before long. When we flew the airplane, it had no nosewheel fairing, because the original could become cocked to the slipstream during certain maneuvers. The fix will be a centering mechanism added to the castering nosewheel.

Even without all three wheel fairings installed, the ES turns in good cruise numbers. Set up for 75-percent cruise at 8,500 feet, in 68- degree-Fahrenheit air, the airplane indicated 140 knots, for a calculated 164 knots true. A two-way speed run with a pair of GPS receivers (one installed and one portable) revealed an average groundspeed of 160 knots. Claimed cruise figures are 165 knots, which would seem to be in the ballpark with the nosewheel fairing installed.

Descending for pattern work, the ES requires a large power reduction to come down. And once in the landing queue, very little power will keep the airplane level at 100 knots indicated. Deploying increments of the electrically operated flaps adds relatively little drag — certainly less than the barn doors on most Cessnas — and any approach started a bit too high will likely be completed power-off.

Lancair's demonstration pilot recommended about 80 knots down final, and that was a bit much, as the airplane tended to float in ground effect. The next time around, 75 knots worked better. Much slower, though, and the view through the windshield on final would be more instrument panel than runway. Estimated landing configuration stall speed is listed as 50 knots, which would suggest 65 knots as a good approach speed. The landings themselves were fine, with the spring-steel main gear taking the occasional thump in stride.

After our brief encounter with the ES, we'd have to say that Lancair has drawn a good bead on its design goals of reproducing an easy- to-fly, good-performing airplane. While it might not make the venerable Cessna 172 and 182 obsolete — it probably will not have the Cessnas' short- field prowess, for example — it surely is a desirable alternative.

Whether the ES gets through the certification process intact will in large part be determined by the company's resources and the ability of the market to sustain the model. Right now, the company feels that the ES fills gaping holes in both the kit-built and production sides. We agree.

SkyStar Vixen

While the various Kitfox models have traded on nostalgia and the promise of sunny-day, no-pressures aviating, the company's newest two-seater has been substantially altered for a different, more mainstream role. The tricycle-gear Vixen struts into life with a mission: to be a come-hither personal transport as well as a primary trainer. It is thus revised — from the new, streamlined cowling to the swept vertical tail.

Under hood remains the 80-hp Rotax 912 that powers the other Kitfox models, the IV and the Speedster. According to the company's new owner, Phil Reed, the demand for Kitfoxes equipped by the four-stroke Rotax has been tremendous, giving it a large margin over alternative two- strokes. It is currently the only powerplant the company is considering for the Vixen.

While the engine choice has pretty much been locked in, the Vixen ultimately produced will differ considerably from the one seen here. The cabin will be 3 inches wider, and the firewall will be pushed 2 inches forward for more legroom; also, the rudder pedals will be individually adjustable. (Reed is a tall guy, so you know where this change came from.) Also, further aerodynamic changes will be performed to make the airplane fly more conventionally.

As it is, the Speedster-derived Vixen is the best-flying Kitfox yet. It is a light airplane with low wing loading, and you notice both qualities on a gusty day. But the additional vertical tail area compared to the Speedster, along with the differential flaperon linkage introduced on the Kitfox Model IV, helps make the airplane better coordinated and reduces the effects of adverse yaw. In addition, yaw stability has benefited, and the airplane needs less attention once set into a turn.

Pitch response has also been brought toward the middle ground, with greater stick force per G and a greater tendency to return to trimmed airspeed. SkyStar owner Reed acknowledges, though, that the airplane still has more engineering ahead of it to further increase longitudinal stability and to eliminate a dead spot in the pitch response caused by a bungee system installed in the Vixen to help improve stability.

The Vixen remains lighter to the touch and a bit less stable than the Cessna 150/152 it hopes to supersede in flight training, but the company is homing in on the target at a good rate. Speaking of rates, the Vixen we tried remains about 5 to 7 knots slower than the Speedster, which posts a 108-knot cruise, largely because of the tall main gear and additional drag of the nosewheel. Reed says that the main gear will be shortened with the next model, and better attention to airframe details should restore at least some of the Speedster's quick.

In all, it seems the company is headed in the right direction with the Vixen. Expect the kit to be priced about $2,000 over the existing Speedster, which means a tag of about $26,500 for the airframe, basic VFR instruments, engine, and propeller. You add interior, paint, and radios.

Completed, certified airplanes, Reed hopes, will come in around $50,000 with radios and a basic instrument package.

Avid Magnum

It's the American way — bigger is almost always better. Just down the road from the SkyStar factory, in Caldwell, Idaho, hums the Avid Aircraft facility, which is now busily churning out both its bread-and-butter model, the Flyer, and a completely new airplane, the Magnum. The latter is a spiritual kin to the vaunted Super Cub and is a large step up from the Flyer.

Powered by a 160-hp Lycoming in the factory's version, the Magnum can accept anything from 125-hp to 180-hp Lycomings. Park the Magnum next to the Flyer, and you can see which one ate the most Wheaties. With a wingspan of 33 feet, overall length of 21 feet, and 140 square feet of wing, the Magnum is larger in every dimension. The wing, which is the same airfoil as in the Flyer, has 2 feet more span, more ribs, and a substantially beefed-up structure. It retains the Flyer's folding feature.

More room inside the cabin is one benefit of the Magnum's girth. Settle into the two seats (a third can be placed in the generous aft baggage compartment, but getting in and out would require some acrobatics), and you're reminded more of the front office of a Cessna 172 than the diminutive Flyer. Two 200-pounders would have no difficulty fitting comfortably in this cabin; listed cabin width is 44 inches.

Large windows and a transparent overhead panel help make the cabin airy as well, and even visibility over the taildragger's nose is quite good. Moreover, the instrument panel offers up enough real estate to carry a full gyro panel and IFR avionics.

Avid wanted to make the Magnum a good bush airplane, with short takeoff and landing rolls and strong climb performance. The company has succeeded on all counts. With General Manager Jim Metzger at the controls, the Magnum will get into and out of some pretty tight, short strips. The company says the airplane will need a scant 150 feet for the takeoff roll and just 200 feet for landing — which sounds perfectly outrageous until you experience it. While we didn't step out onto the runway with a tape measure, suffice it to say both takeoff and landing distances are quite short. Available climb performance is also excellent, with an easy 1,500 fpm available near sea level.

Such performance is the result of plenty of power in a light airframe; in this case, maximum gross weight is 1,650 pounds. Empty weight of the prototype is 1,025, leaving 457 pounds of payload with the 28 gallons of fuel on board.

Naturally, STOL performance takes at least some toll on straight- line speed. Quoted 75-percent cruise for the 160-hp airplane comes to 113 knots true; we measured an average, GPS-derived groundspeed of 111 knots at 3,500 feet on a warmer than standard day. Your basic Cessna 172 will do 117 knots true at that altitude and power setting.

Not only does the Magnum have the performance to tackle short, tough fields, it has excellent low-speed handling behavior to make the chore almost simplistic. At an indicated 43 knots, you can swivel and bank the airplane as though it were an airborne Baryshnikov. It has the rudder authority to crank in, as Metzger says, mega slips. Sure, it has plenty of adverse yaw thanks to those long flaperons, and you have to work those feet to maintain coordinated flight, but a Super Cub asks for that, too.

Avid has screwed together a thoroughly entertaining and capable STOL airplane and has managed to do it without breaking the bank. The basic airframe kit — which includes the usual items plus upholstered seats — runs $18,995. Metzger believes you could have an airplane up and running for between $30,000 and $35,000, depending on where you find the engine and prop and how lavishly you equip the airplane electronics-wise. Build time is estimated at between 600 and 800 hours.

Tri-R Technology KIS

As axioms go, "Keep It Simple" is a pretty good one. And it's the thought Rich Trickel kept in mind when designing the KIS — which led him to a two- place airplane with few frills and no complex systems. Originally penned for an Australian concern that ultimately didn't come through with the production side of the deal, Trickel's airplane was then brought in-house. Trickel's day job, if you will, is as a partner with High Tech Composites, an Oxnard, California-based company that constructs composite parts for Lancair and Basler (engine cowlings for the DC-3 turbine conversions), among others.

Because Trickel was familiar with the Lancair construction methods, the KIS was designed much the same way. The skins are pre- impregnated fiberglass that are laid up in molds and cured in an oven; the parts are vacuum-bagged to remove air bubbles in the lay-ups. The KIS is also like a Lancair in that the bottom of the fuselage is one piece, forming a bathtub-like structure, and the cabin roof and tail are then bonded atop the tub. The wing uses a one-piece spar with carbon end caps, and the premolded doors have a layer of carbon for rigidity. What's more, the cabin has a hefty rollover structure reinforced with carbon fiber.

Although the materials seem perfectly space aged (and maybe a bit daunting), the basic construction of the kit seems straightforward, with many premolded parts and single-piece wing skins. It's evident that Trickel has learned from his nine years in the industry about how to make a builder's life easier.

Wingspan is 23 feet, and total area is 88 square feet, which is slightly shorter and 8 square feet greater area than a Pulsar's. The KIS's cabin is taller and wider than a Pulsar's, too, and the engine choices all are heavier powerplants than the Pulsar's Rotax 912. So the KIS's empty weight of about 700 pounds is reasonable. Maximum gross weight is 1,200 pounds with the 80-hp Limbach and up to 1,400 pounds with a Lycoming O- 235. Fuel capacities run from 20 to 25 gallons, which leaves enough payload for two in the cockpit and a good chunk of luggage in the baggage compartment.

Claimed cruise speeds range from the 80-hp trigear's maximum of 117 knots to the 118-hp taildragger's 148 knots, a number we verified during a two-way speed run. Climb performance is also good with the Lycoming, posting 1,000 fpm from nearly sea level at about 100 pounds under maximum gross. The Limbach-powered trigear manages about 650 fpm.

The KIS's handling qualities are straightforward, solid in roll, if a bit stiff, and middling to light in pitch. The airplane also has decent spiral stability but no great tenacity to return to trimmed airspeed. The elevator trim, actuated by a Bowden cable, like a cabin-heat control, seemed a bit sensitive. Flap positions number two and, because the flaps are not of the Fowler variety, they provide more drag than lift. Approaches are made at about 70 knots with two aboard.

We didn't get any landings because the taildragger not only belongs to one of Trickel's staff, but has no brakes on the right side. Trickel did a fine job, but the view over the nose in the flare (and even more so on the ground) is poor. S-turns should be considered mandatory.

Base prices for the trigear start at $15,500 for the airframe. You must purchase the engine, prop, interior, paint, and avionics separately. As with all kit-builts, the completed cost can vary considerably: A finished KIS could run you anywhere from $20,000 with a used engine and minimal gear to about $35,000 if you go whole hog.

What About Production?

All four manufacturers listed here intend to look into production versions of these models. Lancair is perhaps the most overt and optimistic, claiming that it started from scratch to build a certifiable airplane. Avid's Metzger says the company is a bit more cautious but that the basic design of the Magnum (or the Flyer) could be easily certifiable — only the determination of an alive-and-breathing market for a latter-day, side-by- side Super Cub remains. SkyStar's Reed and Tri-R's Trickel both say that production could be in the future of their respective models, but financing and finalization of certification methods stands between having a kit and turning out turn-key airplanes. All of these models would be excellent production airplanes, but they also appear to be successful kits; whether the designs make the leap, time will tell.