This beast of an airplane was all the rage a couple of years ago. Every once in while I get curious about interesting designs and do some digging to see if there is any news I've missed. On the DoubleEnder website (http://www.bushplanedesign.com/news--updates.html, ) the last news and update is from 2015. In that update it says the 2 seat SBS version is making good progress. Nothing new since then. If I remember correctly, the designer/builder/pilot was a busy guy that spent a lot of time in Africa. Does anyone know if work is continuing on the design variants or on the prototype? I'm not in the market, I'm just bored since the backcountry is a mud bath in the PNW right now. It isn't cold enough for real winter flying and it isn't warm or dry enough for pleasant weather airplane camping. So, I'm stumbling around in the internet looking for diversions. If nothing is going on with the DoubleEnder, are there any other suggestions for online diversions while waiting for the weather and grass landing areas to improve? I'm still flying, but my destination options are limited to paved fields for now. Here's a recent aerial view of local flying conditions. Like I said, it's soggy.

Rumor has it.....Double Ender is sitting in a hangar in Oregon.

Understand the internet browsing. I'm in south Texas assisting an elderly parent. Sure mis having the ability to get an aviation fix. I did drive to the local airport to look at a couple of planes for sale though.

If you haven't found this video yet, it is eight hours of cross wind landings at London Heathrow airport. Slide the time bar up to 3:30:00 for when the 70 mph winds hit. The guy streaming the video has some pretty funny comments.

https://fireaviation.com/2022/02/19/vid ... -heathrow/

Haven't heard much from Alec lately. He did fly the Ascender, which was his single engine side-by-side model. Flew it to Alaska I believe.

Barnstormer wrote:

tcj wrote:If you haven't found this video yet, it is eight hours of cross wind landings at London Heathrow airport. Slide the time bar up to 3:30:00 for when the 70 mph winds hit. The guy streaming the video has some pretty funny comments.

https://fireaviation.com/2022/02/19/vid ... -heathrow/

What does this have to do with the Double Ender? You just trolling I suppose. Go be a troll under someone else's bridge.

No need for big bold font or bad reading comprehension. He's addressing the OP's admission of looking for flying entertainment during bad weather.

TCJ is a swell chap whom we can rely on to pleasant and friendly around here.

What does this have to do with the Double Ender? You just trolling I suppose. Go be a troll under someone else's bridge.

Yeah, as the OP, I was both interested in what's going on with the DoubleEnder and for any kind of online flying diversions. There's a wintery mix falling right now that has the visibility down to almost zero, but the snow is so wet, it's just making more mud on the ground. Real flying options without a death wish are almost nil at this point and I'm going crazy. Big planes in cross winds gives me something to take my mind off the fact that I'm not flying. I did putz around the hangar yesterday and took care of some squawks with the plane. The o-rings on the primer shaft had partially failed so there was some gas leakage when I primed the engine. That's fixed, tire pressures were checked and corrected as necessary and surplus grease around the tailwheel pivot was cleaned. It was still WAY too cold in the hangar, so I didn't stay long. These are the flying doldrums. Maybe I need to become a snowbird and head way south for this dead time of the year.

After ZZZ's post about the single engined version of the DoubleEnder called the Ascender, I Googled it, but only found stuff about the Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender. Definitely not the same plane, but interesting nonetheless. I wonder if Rutan's grandad worked on this oddball fighter?

Well sincere apologies to tcj then. (in the same big bold font to match my original intention).

However I have no idea what airliners have to do with backcountry flying, and I'm pretty sure there are thousands of videos available online about backcountry flying to satisfy the understandable need for winter time entertainment (yea winter can suck). Just saying.

Barnstormer wrote:However I have no idea what airliners have to do with backcountry flying, and I'm pretty sure there are thousands of videos available online about backcountry flying to satisfy the understandable need for winter time entertainment (yea winter can suck). Just saying.

This I agree with Come on TCJ, we know you have all the old heli attack and deer netting vids.

Spoke with Alec a little while ago and he sent a few pics of the Ascender.

Wow! Talk about visibility! Flying in a fishbowl. I bet it would be a blast to fly.

Kurt

I dont believe that the double ender is assembled any longer. My understanding is that the multi engine rating to fly the thing sort of killed it.
I dont know that they were ever really really planning on selling it as a kit anyways so that may be hearsay. I see the ascender at the airfield every so often. Unreal visibility in that thing. To my knowledge they only let one dude fly it.

It's name reminds me of the Pterodactyl line of ultralights I used to fly, also called Ascender. Since it was a pusher, the name was morphed to Assender.

courierguy wrote:It's name reminds me of the Pterodactyl line of ultralights I used to fly, also called Ascender. Since it was a pusher, the name was morphed to Assender.

I lost a good friend, Floyd Griffith in an “Assender”. Highly experienced ultralight and hang glider pilot. That was a tough day for me. April 10th, 1983. The day before my birthday. Girdwood, Alaska.

Kurt

Zzz wrote:Spoke with Alec a little while ago and he sent a few pics of the Ascender.

Hey ZZZ - Thanks for reaching out to Alec and getting those pics. What a creative toy! He's a talented individual. There are lots of airplane designers, lots of airplane builders and lots of pilots, but very few folks that excel at all 3 disciplines. My hat is off to him. Those pics (along with clear skies and some flying today) have cured my winter blues for a spell.

It was a great UL, with unequaled off airport capability. It was so capable, among the UL crowd that DIDN'T make cross country flights, with camping gear, in other words expose themselves to the greater hazards than just staying in the pattern, it sometimes got a bad reputation amongst a few.

They had a few highly publicized accidents caused by people with little or no training, one made national news as some reporter tried to fly it with zero training, and after it did exactly what he told it to do, got killed, branding it "unsafe." I clearly remember watching the video, obvious as hell he got into a PIO cycle, all he had to do was let go of the stick! Based on the Manta Fledge hang glider, which I was also an early adopter of, being a company dealer, as I was for Pterodactyl. I can still get real fired up if I hear it being dissed by someone without real knowledge of it, not that you did! With a a bit over 650 hrs TT in them, (all mountain flying) and another hundred or so in the Fledge glider I feel like I know what I'm talking about. Sorry to hear about your friend Floyd. I only knew of one first hand fatality among my crowd, by a pilot who got interrupted while folding the wing out, and left one of the 4 compression struts un done and than failed to catch it in his pre flight.

I sold over 50 of them as a dealer, and about a dozen Fledge HG's, and was the only Manta dealer that was being shipped the raw parts and was allowed to final assemble and rig them. They were the first, by a long margin, to fly coast to coast, without any ground crew or other support, and they did it over some of the roughest terrain in the country, not the "easy" way. The Absaroka Range in Montana as one example, just because the 2 pilots (Dan White and 'dac prez the infamous Jack McCornack) wanted to clearly illustrate it's capability. And because Jack was crazy.....or at least fearless, I, to this day, fly around that range.

Enough of that drift! I think the Double Ender is/was an interesting one off design, greatly executed, but am not surprised to see it being just that, a one off.