Has anyone ever seen some plans for an 85% scaled super cub or rans S7 type airplane? I see a lot of kits out there but haven't ever seen one more geared towards "Homebuilt" type airplanes. Something around 600-700 lbs empty.

Also does anyone have a Rocky Mountain Ridge Runner 3 (tandem seating)? They seem a bit light for windy days, but.......

Thanks for the info.

byeBill

Plans built LSA's are difficult to come by. The Bearhawk LSA is the only one I can think of that is available as plans built. The companies have so much of their future at stake that to sell the plans for a few hundred just makes their design that much easier to copy, modify then call it something else. Zenith aircraft quit selling plans for the 701 because so many others based their designs off of it and to prevent that most LSA's are now just available as kits.
The Savage Cub LSA kits are Super Cub based.

The Savage's are Rans s7 clones with rounded off control surfaces to appear more cub like. They are exact
copies of the older s7's, right down to all airframe and wing measurements.

Thanks Tex, that whole site is full of reference to "Cub" and not one that I saw to the S7. How did they get by without credit to the Rans based design. That kind of stuff is less expected from US companies and more from South American or the Chinese.

From the iCub site on the Savage Cub:

Fuselage & Wing
Super Cub style fuselage design
Torsion resistant cabin top X-brace

I forget the exact history of when the Savage appeared, and how, but its generally known that the "original" savage was an exact copy of a short tail Rans (an older, cruder verison of the current longer S-7S). Since then, however, I think a lot of refinements have gone into the Savage - albeit I think its still shorter than the S7S.

But to the original question, I think you best option for plans built Bill would be the Bearhawk LSA. http://www.bearhawkaircraft.com/LSA/

THey have a very active Yahoo group that you can join for support/information from other builders.

You might also pick up a copy of the latest kitplane directory by Kitplanes. THey usually publish a section for plans built options. There are probably others.

Emmet

I have a Ridge Runner Model 3 kit in progress, and wingsoverpalawan flies one in the Phillipines. I have no personal flying experience in the Ridge Runner, but the build has been a relative breeze so far, aside from self-induced delays. Also, great customer support and a pretty respectable small family business.

Sorry to pull this thread away from the fabulous S7, but to address a previous post I believe you can still build the LSA Zenith 701 and 750 from plans, with factory support. If that is still supported, it's a very gracious gift to homebuilders, because of the problems with copy-cats.

IMHO the Zenith 750 has several important advantages in the utility, performance, and building department, and is held back only by one unfair disadvantage. All of Chris Heintz' designs were hit very hard with the "ugly stick". However if you can look past that you will find that they are beautiful in the same way a rock crawling Jeep, or an older Land Cruiser is beautiful.

The Zenair STOL airplanes are an enormous achievement not yet fully recognized in the back country world... with more or less a pair of tin snips and a pop rivet gun... and accepting a boxy homebuilt airplane not big on sex appeal... and for less than ten thousand dollars in (airframe) raw materials... a low-time nosewheel wannabe can safely get in and out of moderately demanding STOL destinations, and a mid-time pilot with a moderate amount of practice can go almost anywhere the Super Cubs go??? That's amazing.

Absolutely no disrespect or jabs taken at any of the other great EXP STOL bush aircraft, the RANS, Avids, Kitfoxes, Highlanders, Cub Clones, etc. etc. Most of them need fuselage welding jigs, and thus are simply too much of a project for a modern-era scratchbuilding homebuilder. For an honest assessment, looking for a plans-built bushplane that has real capability, the pop-riveted Zenair has a lot going for it.

But you are left without a roll cage as you're welcomed to the scene of the crash... All that welding and jigging has it's benefits too.

+1 Bearhawk LSA, Bob has really tuned that thing up.

EZFlap wrote:Sorry to pull this thread away from the fabulous S7, but to address a previous post I believe you can still build the LSA Zenith 701 and 750 from plans, with factory support. If that is still supported, it's a very gracious gift to homebuilders, because of the problems with copy-cats.

IMHO the Zenith 750 has several important advantages in the utility, performance, and building department, and is held back only by one unfair disadvantage. All of Chris Heintz' designs were hit very hard with the "ugly stick". However if you can look past that you will find that they are beautiful in the same way a rock crawling Jeep, or an older Land Cruiser is beautiful.

The Zenair STOL airplanes are an enormous achievement not yet fully recognized in the back country world... with more or less a pair of tin snips and a pop rivet gun... and accepting a boxy homebuilt airplane not big on sex appeal... and for less than ten thousand dollars in (airframe) raw materials... a low-time nosewheel wannabe can safely get in and out of moderately demanding STOL destinations, and a mid-time pilot with a moderate amount of practice can go almost anywhere the Super Cubs go??? That's amazing.

Absolutely no disrespect or jabs taken at any of the other great EXP STOL bush aircraft, the RANS, Avids, Kitfoxes, Highlanders, Cub Clones, etc. etc. Most of them need fuselage welding jigs, and thus are simply too much of a project for a modern-era scratchbuilding homebuilder. For an honest assessment, looking for a plans-built bushplane that has real capability, the pop-riveted Zenair has a lot going for it.

EZ, I just looked at the Zenair site and they indeed are selling plans. So when did they start that again? They had ceased selling plans already when I had mine back in 2001. The reason given was they refused to provide the engineering for the competition basing off their own design, it had ticked them off. They told me they would sell kits only. It was a great little plane by the way and it was my wife who steered me back into flying with my other choice being getting back into motorcycling. We both reasoned this hits the ground with more protection and likely slower.

Battson wrote:But you are left without a roll cage as you're welcomed to the scene of the crash... All that welding and jigging has it's benefits too.

+1 Bearhawk LSA, Bob has really tuned that thing up.

Yes, steel tube airplanes of course have very well known benefits. The 701 and 750 actually do have a steel tube "superstructure" at the top and forward sides of the cabin, wing spar mounting, etc. It is not quite as extensive as the Cub type structure. However I am not aware of any higher frequency of "roll over" fatalities in thee Zenair airplanes than any others.

Not trying to de-rail the thread any further, but if we're talking about crash safety there are a lot of steel tube "roll cage" STOL kitplanes and CAR 4 / FAR 23 factory airplanes that have the fuel tank located inside the cabin with the occupants, with the ignition switch and panel wiring on one side of the tank, and the engine/exhaust on the other. A fatality scenario can be written for any type of accident.

The 701/750 would be fine by me, except I want a tailwheel. It's the only cool thing I Can do. I work with a laid off/quit Horizon Air pilot. His couple thousand bus driver hours will never compare to my whopping 350 hours of fun.

& besides he is scared to even want to land with the nose wheel on the wrong end. Bonus!

byeBill

You guys forget about Wag-Aero?

They sell plans and kits for most of the tube & rag Pipers. I'm using a set of Wag-a-bond (Vagabond clone) prints to aid in the modifications and restoration of my Kitfox.

Thought I'd mention another option. Fellow in Canada, Ron Wilson, designed a neat little 2 seat tandem bird...Acrolite 2M. Guy won the Aircraft Spruce scratch build design contest years ago with an aerobatic biplane. I have a set of plans for the 2M, intend to build one eventually. It is a clever little design. All aluminum single strut wing, aluminum tube cantilevered tailplane...is really pretty low drag looking for a high wing plane. Uses full span ailerons (could be setup as flaperons) that are very similar to what RANS is doing now...aileron pivots BEHIND the leading edge spar to get a light control feel. This thing has been flying since '94, so he didn't copy RANS ailerons (like Savage copied their whole plane...geesh, I own a short tail S7...it is a reverse engineered version of it)
Downsides to the 2M...as far as I know there is only the prototype flying. Go back to the Kitfox/Avid history...sometimes the best marketing campaign wins...the Acrolite guys don't appear to be pushing the design much...don't know them personally...have spoke to Ron on the phone and several emails, but salesman they are not. Seems like a nice guy that enjoys building unique planes and sells plans for other folks to duplicate them from.
Other issue with it...it is a 2 seater but after redrawing the fuselage of the 2M in AutoCAD and comparing to the S7 in my hangar it is a bit tighter seating...kinda like a Challenger ultralight where the back seater has legs wrapped around the front seat...1+1 style...big guys need not apply. With a few mods would probably make a REAL nice single seat bushy-kind of plane.
Stone-simple construction...

http://www.acrolite.org/


Jeremy
RANS S7 flyer

Not tandem but an excellent 2 place light bush plain. Those wingtips gotta go but the deployable wing cuff and overall design is where I would start.

Wittman Buttercup http://www.luceair.com/replica_buttercup.html


EB

cessnaford wrote:The 701/750 would be fine by me, except I want a tailwheel.

Although not common, there are several 701's with tailwheel gear. The Savannah (a 701 copy, or parallel development according to some) has a tailwheel version available.

There is one dark blue 701 which was built by a Frenchman somewhere near the Alps, which you can find in the Zenair website photo pages, and he used a Cub style main gear. Zenith had plans available for a tailwheel version, however they used the existing trike main gear which looked really wierd (even by Zenair standards!)

If you choose the 701, you can get the tailwheel drawings from them. I believe all it needs is an additional welded gear/strut fitting mounted further forward, and perhaps a few additional aluminum pieces added to distribute the loads. Then you can have a taller gear made (Grove Aircraft, Gillespie Field, San Diego, CA) that gives you a decent three point attitude.

Making a steel tube gear similar to the Pilatus or Fieseler would be a really good project for the 750, and give you even better capability than the solid aluminum Zenair gear. Talk to the guys making the Highlander "super STOL" gear, they're going in the right direction. See if you can get one of those setups for the 750 mounting dimensions.

To be honest, 20 pounds of S2 glass fiber, a gallon of epoxy laminating resin, a week of spare time, and a one-shot wooden channel mold would give you a light and strong gear if you're willing to learn and find the right info.







er

Really enjoy reading these types of threads on here!!! Keep it coming guys! My Dad scratchbuilt a Volmer Jensen design, the VJ-24 which was based off the first 3 axis hang glider. Volmer Designed a cool Amphibian too back in the day.

You can check out the Fisher Flying Products site. I believe you can still get plans for most if not all of their kits.

Hi folks,

Has anyone seen the Bearhawk LSA drawings? The limited info on their web site is difficult to determine what the fuselage design really looks like...it says it's a new design but how and what changes are made to keep weight down. I'm getting ready to start an LSA Cub and am trying to learn as much as possible before I get too far into the fuselage. I'm shooting for a <750 pound/0-200 powered Cub with Carlson wings with flaps and maybe VG's.

Thanks!!

S-12Flyer wrote:You can check out the Fisher Flying Products site. I believe you can still get plans for most if not all of their kits.

Completely forgot about Fisher. They were out of Edgely,ND about 60 miles NW of me and about 1990 sold to a Canadian group in Ontario. I looked at their website and most models are still available. I used to stop at Edgely and walk through the shop where kits were being made and through the owner's hangar on the other side of US 281 to look at completed planes of his. Everything was wood construction at that time and the plans were to full size scale. You could lay the part on the drawing to check for accuracy. Huge amount of paper but made the plans building easier to follow. Great flying little planes but they are generally considered classic style light weight homebuilts.

lowrider wrote:Hi folks,

Has anyone seen the Bearhawk LSA drawings? The limited info on their web site is difficult to determine what the fuselage design really looks like...it says it's a new design but how and what changes are made to keep weight down. I'm getting ready to start an LSA Cub and am trying to learn as much as possible before I get too far into the fuselage. I'm shooting for a <750 pound/0-200 powered Cub with Carlson wings with flaps and maybe VG's.

Thanks!!

Lowrider, I have not seen The Bearhawk LSA plans but I'm familiar with Bob's other designs and I'm building a Patrol. I believe Bob did get the LSA to weigh in at 728 for the proto but it has .016 wing skins and Bob is not recommending this on builder a/c. I'm skeptical of getting the airplane to weigh under 775 or so with a small continental. Bearhawk fuselages have the upper longerons located up high like the carbon cub and Wayne Mackey's designs. As far as a Cub with flaps and carlson wing parts getting under 750, I think thats a tall order. Most lightweight J-3's come in at 750 or so. You will be lucky to get one that light with those desierable flaps. I have spoke with a man that has flown Bobs LSA and he likes it a lot. He is flying a Patrol and building another.