This Original design has the wing, stabilizer, and pilot along the engine's thrust line. The pilot has a great view as well. There are no wing struts, the main spar carries the wing load. It has tricycle landing gear, with a pusher motor, intended for pleasure flying, and occasional rolls, loops, and inverted flying.
When viewed from the front, the wings are flat on top, and tapered from a 12 inch thickness in the center to a 6 inch thickness at the tip. This wing design is similar to a lot of aerobic planes like the Sukhoi 26, Edge 540, etc. There are three wing sections. The center section is bolted to the fuselage, and is 8 feet long, and has no taper. The outer wings are 12 feet long, removable, and tapered. Dihedral is minimal due to taper toward the tips on the bottom of the wing. The airfoil is semi-symetrical to allow for inverted flight and other manuevers.
The wing has one main internal spar using 1.5 inch aluminum angles, 1/8 inch thick and 8' long, two on top, and two on bottom. The aluminum angles are held together using aluminum vertical angle braces. This leaves a 1/4 inch opening between the braces for a 1/4th inch thick piece of 2024 that slides between the braces to make a removable wing spar joint. The leading edge and trailing edge will hold additional wing joiners bolted from the outside using riveted nuts on the joiners.
The tail booms are bolted to the center wing section at the trailing edge, main spar, and leading edge. The main spar uses aluminum angle to attach to the boom tubes. The tail booms are made using a 2.25 inch diameter, 1/8th inch thick aluminum tube 8' long. The tail boom tubes will use 2 inch tube to join the two 8' tubes.
No tube in the plane is longer than 8 foot, because of freight cost. UPS delivers up to 8 foot tubes under 60lbs for a reasonable price.
The engine is from a 2002 Artic Cat snowmobile. The 800cc Suzuki 2 stroke motor is fuel injected with 140 horsepower at 7000 rpm.
I've bought most ot theT6 aluminum tubes, crome moly steel tubes, and T6 sheets.
I've assembled the frame, less ribs, for the main wing center section. Now I'm working on the fuselage.
Since the PoorBoy didn't take off in my 500' x 50' grass runway, I decided to increase the wing area to match the WeedHopper's 168 sq. ft. for short field takeoffs. 8' center wing section, 3' of in is inside the fuselage, 12' outer wing sections, straight leading and trailing edges 5' wide with 1' ailerons. The rib thickness will be 6" at the tips. Wingspan less fuselage is 29'. Wing area is (12' * 6') * 2 + (5' X5') for 169 sq ft. The outer wings can always be shortened, but I want to make sure it can take off from a short grass field.
