The next Cirrus "contender" from China

Another Windecker Eagle story

A Mooney 252 does 200 TAS at 28k feet on 210 hp. As for the “salesman’s dream”: Mooney certified the plane for 28 k feet for that only reason – 252mph in the brochure

What about the power setting / fuel flow?

170kt TAS is absolutely trivial with a 540/550 engine if you shove enough fuel in, and should be doable on any clean airframe at say 65% power and peak EGT. 200kt TAS is equally trivial with a turbo version if you shove more fuel in and shove loads of oxygen into the pilot… aviation is a salesman’s dream.

I do like the hull design. Very nice and clean.

170 ktas would mean TAS.

The first glider made in FRP was a Phoenix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akaflieg_Stuttgart_FS-24

As a sidenote. We often think that military aviation and the defense industry are the ones pushing aviation technology forward, but there would be no Dreamliners, A350’s or F35’s if there hadn’t been Leo Windecker and EAA tinkerers. And that wasn’t even the first certified composite aircraft – the Glasflugel Libelle sailplane did it in the mid 60’s, years before. Obviously Rutan took it all to the next level and one could argue there wouldn’t be a modern aviation industry without him.

But GA was the birthplace for it all, not some fancy lab at Lockheed Martin. So it’s sad that GA gets treated like the unwanted cousin still.

I would say that’s a good contender for the Tiger Moth, but not the Cirrus :-)

Probably because they got it from yesterday’s US coverage

Anyway, this shows how so little changes in GA… this is 40+ years ago.

But, as we all know, is this IAS or TAS? 170kt IAS is highly respectable, for an IO550 running at say 65% of max rated power and peak EGT i.e. about 12-13 USG/hr. Flat out, even the TB20 with all the rivets does 165kt IAS. 170kt TAS is trivially achieved at altitude if you have a turbo.