Building an Apis equivalent

Brad wrote:
Paint it in polyurethane and you can probably leave tied out about as
well, too. Brad can tell us how long it takes to build one.


Hi Eric,

Building the Apis was actually a lot of fun, with good instructions,
and advice from Robert Mudd I was able to complete the build process
in under 150 hours.

That's impressive! A retired guy should be able to build one a month,
then, working only 40 hours a week, including latte breaks.

The gel-coat (prestec) took considerably longer!

Would using polyurethane speed it up any?


The latest project on my 13m Apis is putting an engine in it.

I assume that will take 150+ hours?


After building 2 Russias and an Apis I'd like to tackle a design of my
own based on these 2 ships. Any one interested????......)

Some suggestions:

*simplify the power system by having the pilot extend it by hand from
beside the tail boom while on the ground, and "retract-only" in the air
(no in air restarts). Not my idea - Greg Cole is considering something
like this for the SparrowHawk to simplicate and add lightness.

*use a steerable tail wheel in the rudder like the LS-9 - that seems so
cool, but can have some drawbacks

*Turbine powered?

*A hybrid motorglider: an electric motor with enough battery capacity to
launch it to 3000', and a small gasoline motor to recharge the batteries
in an hour

For an Apis weight glider with a 6 minute climb to 3000 feet, maybe
you'd need 25 hp of electric power. To recharge in an hour would take a
gasoline motor of about 1/8 this, so that would only be 3 hp, or a small
lawnmower engine.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA