What is hiding out there for a experimental Bush options, Besides the Mustang ranch? . Be nice to have something with some speed, cabin room and not a jungle gym to climb into. already know of Wilga ,Bearhawk, Bushmasters, Cyclones, etc. Any thoughts on what is out there?

Glasair Sportsman
Murphy Moose

Great Topic,

Dream Aircraft Tundra. Sort of a complex build



Zenith 801...not a tail dragger, some oil canning of fuse reported, restricted back area baggage capacity.



The Mackey based BackCountry Cubs style SQ4



IMHO, I think the Bearhawk 4 Place and the early up to 1959 Cessna 180 are the class acts in this category. The 180 obviously is not experimental.

Bearhawk 4 Place



Cessna 180 (Not Experimental)

Oil-canning in Zenith STOL series is easily solve-able with a few ounces of Aircraft Spruce hat-section stringers. Known, easy fix.

Cosmetic challenge... not so easy to fix

But the Zenairs are likely the best bang for the buck when you factor in build time, build complexity, materials and/or kit cost, fuel, and where you can get in and out of with how much stuff on board.

Easily possible to build as a taildragger if desired.

Definitely not as pretty as several of the other options.

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EZFlap.. writing about the Zenith 801 said:
.
Easily possible to build as a taildragger if desired.

Definitely not as pretty as several of the other options.

Beauty, or the serious lack thereof, is in the eye of the beholder.

*** EDIT CORRECTION. Thanks to EZFlap for pointing out my error. The plane below is a 701 in tail wheel configuration. It is not a Zenith 801. Thanks for the correction EZFlap.

Uhhh... yeah.

The Zenith is ugly enough that the addition of a Storch or Porter style long-stroke gear wouldn't make it any more ugly. But it would allow a much higher AoA than using the stock main gear moved forward. And save a bunch of weight.

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EZflap wrote:

The Zenith is ugly enough that the addition of a Storch or Porter style long-stroke gear wouldn't make it any more ugly. But it would allow a much higher AoA than using the stock main gear moved forward. And save a bunch of weight.

It would be interesting to photshop the SuperSTOL gear onto an 801 Tail Dragger.

Just SuperSTOL (LSA 2 place)



Zenith 701 Tail Dragger (2 Place)
*** EDIT CORRECTION. Thanks to EZFlap or pointing out my error. The plane below is a 2 place 701 in tail wheel configuration. It is not, as previously identified, a 4 place Zenith 801. My Bad. Thanks for the correction EZFlap.

That photo of the OD airplane is a Zenith 701, not 801. The 801 is a third larger and has four seats.

The Dream aircraft Tundra is interesting. It looks good and has nice lines and big doors. With the cost of aviation today, it has to fly good and look good. I know some fly good and look like crap.

I actually think the Zenith looks better as a tail dragger.

Magnet wrote:I actually think the Zenith looks better as a tail dragger.

That could be said about any airplane

robw56 wrote:

Magnet wrote:I actually think the Zenith looks better as a tail dragger.

That could be said about any airplane

Ha. Yes!

mountainwagon wrote:What is hiding out there for a experimental Bush options, Besides the Mustang ranch? . Be nice to have something with some speed, cabin room and not a jungle gym to climb into. already know of Wilga ,Bearhawk, Bushmasters, Cyclones, etc. Any thoughts on what is out there?

It looks like you are only interested in the >2 place aircraft?

Otherwise there are about another 50 Cub variants to add to your list...

What about the Kitfox SS.



STOL performance similar to the others yet a cruise speed of 120+ mph.
Easy folding wings.
Nice wide comfortable side by side cabin.
Can be built LSA or with a 1550 gross weight.
Can be had for a fraction of the cost of the Justs, Cubs or Rans

My Zenith 750 is about ready for inspection, and, you're right on looks, it does look like a flying UPS truck. When I was looking several years ago, like most, I really thought I would end up with a taildragger and flew quite a few, GA and Highlander, Kitfox, etc. but there was something about that flying jeep look with those leading edge slats that kept me coming back. What sold me was the visibility, the side by side interior room for two real people, and it again, that jeep look. I have two '79 Jeeps and a '54, and there's a reason you never see jeep car shows , they and that 750 just have the functional, utilitarian look that you learn to love, inverted stabilizer and all. I think the Wilga is a distant cousin.



This is Avilution's completed Zenith 750




And mine a while back. Hope to be in the air soon, and I'll do a write up on it with pictures. It has the Rotax 912, cruise about 95-100 mph, take roll 75-100 ft. This was really a good idea on a thread, there's a lot of experimentals out there that would be interesting to see and learn about.

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Someone noted:

What about the Kitfox SS.?

I was under the impression that the OP was keen to identify 4 place back country capable tail draggers. I hope my error in placing the image of a modified Zenith 701 Tail dragger by identifying it as an 801 did not cause confusion.

I wish Maule would stretch their M7/M8 series wing span just a tad, and market an Experimental quick build kit. It would probably affect their certified sales, so that's not likely to ever happen.

Looking a bit ahead, I think if manufacturers like TESLA continue to improve battery and electrical motor technology, there will be the emergence of some practical and innovative new designs, at least for recreational purposes. An advanced 4 place carbon fiber back country C180 clone, either hybrid or all electric would be amazing. Maybe the TESLA Aircraft Model 1 is already out there on the drawing boards as we speak. Economics, not technology, will probably drive any decisions for production.

Already been mentioned, but I can't stop thinking of this plane after seeing it last spring...

Glasair Sportsman 2+2

For me Bearhawk or a stretched pacer/Producer/Bushmaster

The motor technology is already here, you can buy this stuff off the shelf. A custom (Cessna 180) size motor is easily do-able on a special order basis... the overall design, materials, and way to build it is already in use. It will be a long time before 300 pounds of battery will provide the same amount of power-hours as 300 pounds of gasoline. It's coming, and they're working on it as fast as they can, but it is not "just around the corner" like Popular Mechanics always says.

Some sort of Nobel-genius chemical fuel cell that extracts most all of the energy out of Hydrogen, or some little terrorist-proof, sealed, crash-proof, eco-disaster-proof suitcase nuke electric generator is also out there in the "someday soon" area.

The near-term things that may actually make a significant improvement are things like better technology car engines. Ben Haas' V8 project is a great start. The reason for this is that automobile fuel efficiency has doubled or tripled in the last 75 years, mostly because of advances in fuel delivery and ignition (and little black boxes that run the fuel and spark). We've had the same basic poppet valve, round piston, Otto cycle engine technology in cars for a long time, not HUGE changes in the basic design. And yet the amount of usable power, and the relative efficiency, have gone way up.

Today's high-end Corvette makes 2 or 3 times the power, and gets 2 or 3 times the gas mileage as the first Corvette. While making a small fraction of the pollution/greenhouse/carbon footprint stuff. By contrast, the power, torque, fuel burn, and emissions on an airplane built in the same year as the Corvette came out... and the engine on an airplane today... is close to the same. Of course this is because of certification cost, liability, huge lawsuits that should not have happened, shrinking aircraft market, etc. etc. But the fact remains that once you get the obvious details sorted out (torque and power band shifted down to prop RPM's, allowing for higher duty cycle in aircraft use), a modern automobile engine similar to today's Corvette motor would represent a huge jump in performance and economy.

This doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to an electric bush plane that can survive and prosper in the Alaskan Interior. It means that while we are waiting for that magic battery or pocket nuke reactor... we should be doing what we can do with today's tech.

In Austraila, a busy glider club installed a "crate motor" small block aluminum Chevy V8 in a Pawnee that they had been using as a towplane. They went through all the headaches of government approval (exp/restricted/test case), and figured out the cooling system, and all the other hard work. After all the effort, in a couple or three years they had saved enough money in maintenance and fuel to cover the cost to purchase a brand new European training glider ($100K). And make no mistake, glider towplane engines have a harder life than bush plane engines.

One day I'll build an RV-10 and put bush wheels on it! The performance on them is pretty damn good!