The Last Airplane

Recent problems mentioned here brought me a lot of mail on a variety
of topics. Within the sphere of Flying on the Cheap and low-cost
methods of construction, someone asked if I'd ever considered some
kind of Last Ditch airplane, an absolute minimum flying machine for
people who are determined to build and to fly their own airplane...
until Fate steps in.

Airplanes are usually defined by their mission and powerplant and even
a simple machine can be fairly complex. But in this case the
'mission' need be no more than a single safe flight of the builder/
pilot and the powerplant was assumed to be something made from VW
components and would probably be of stock displacement.

We swapped a few messages defining such a machine and its fabrication
but there were no surprises; it is a doable thing. Then the guy sunk
the hook: “I wonder what it would look like?”

That's the easy part: Form follows function. A minimum flying
machine would look like a Chuck-Bird, Chuck Beason's delightful
little parasol. There are a other designs that could serve as your
precursor but all fail the 'minimum' test at one point or another.

-R.S.Hoover