Selling my existing toy

Yesterday I sold my existing toy to fund this project.

I owned it for 4.5 years and had a lot of fun with it.

Will deliver it to the new owner up in Cheshire next weekend.

Bye bye Taz...

Fixed gear vs Retractable

I decided long ago to build the fixed gear version of this kit.

One look at a retractable and you can see why. (click image for larger view).

The gear does not fold right away and so creates quite a bit of drag even in the retracted position.

So much so that it is slower than the fixed gear version - by about 5-10 knots.

And it costs 3,219 euro more for the retractable option - plus about another 100 hours added to the build time.

All in all a bit of a no-brainer.

Also I just found out from the factory that the fixed gear comes with the prettier and more streamlined tailwheel - that looks like this.

Kit ordered

Today is the start of a journey.

I placed my order with Silence Aircraft GmbH and paid my deposit.

Game on!

Visiting UK agent

On Sunday I went up to Zulu Glasstek to see Pete Wells, the UK agent for the Twister.

Inspiring stuff seeing the finished article. They are glider-like in finish, no rivets or other draggy gumpf to disturb the air. Lovely compound curves everywhere, it sure is a pretty plane.

The latest set of cowlings on the UL260 look very nice too - I found the first attempts a bit ugly to be honest.

Quote to get things started

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."

JFK