New Tandem Seat Kitplane Coming Soon! SPA Cougar Aircraft

All right, so Dan out here at Oshkosh has finally brought to fruition a two-seater trainer so you can fly the single-seater after some instruction. Congratulations. So one of the questions I was asking you, like what took so long to do this, I was thinking just add a seat. Is that how it's done? Yeah, that's how it's done, just add a seat. This is really just a totally new airplane. Clean sheet design. Clean sheet design, and the concept is very similar, but no parts commonality or anything like that. I see the wing has got a little bit different shape. It's actually a taper. Yep. A little taper. The tail is a bit taller and wider. Bigger all the way around, yeah. It's all the way different. It's all the way bigger, you know. So what engines will you be hanging on this one compared to the single seat? So this is designed for 150 to 200 horsepower, mainly parallel valve light comings. I'm sure people dabble on other things. We're going to support, like I said, parallel valve light comings in a few different formats, but that's the base engine. Okay. Is it more like a weight limitation on this, or no, because it's longer, the weight is an issue with this airplane? Engine weight would be an issue in terms of center of gravity. Actually too heavy or too light, so we've kind of adjusted the length of the nose to give you maximum leg room, but also help us dabble with some lighter engines. So this engine is a Titan IO370 and a constant speed prop, but it will probably be very far forward in the center of gravity, so to allow us some room to maybe dabble in Rotex 916, that type of stuff. So we'll see how that goes. So obviously you designed this to be a very sporty airplane. Is this like gentlemen aerobatics, or what is- Yeah, just plus six, negative four Gs, and gentlemen's aerobatics. Spins, snap rolls, things like that are okay, but not made for outside lumps of box or hard negative G maneuvering. Okay. And if somebody's just now seeing this for the first time, explain your construction design. So it's mostly aluminum, 6061 aluminum, blind rivet construction, pop rivets. The forward fuselage is all welded 4130, and the skin's attached to it, so it's all the critical points and everything, lanyard, engine mounts, controls, wing attach points are all built into the welded forward fuselage, which really simplifies building it. And that design kind of inherently already gives you an advanced quick build. Yeah, because the densest structure, like from the seats forward, is done, and all the critical stuff, again, all the points that everything attaches to, it's finished, ready to bolt in. So that portion's almost more bolt together assembly. So that being said, the construction time compared to something else of a similar shape is going to be much less. What's your build time? I tell people, for a Panther, and we haven't finished this, so we don't know, it's going to be a little more, but for a Panther, it's about 600 hours until you're rolling it around, wiggling controls, ready to hang an engine and doing the avionics. This is a little bigger, but also the parts are much more advanced. We've got 100% match tooling, like every hole has a mating hole already in it. Much of it is full size, so you literally just deburr it and rivet it together. So it's probably a very similar build time for the basic airframe. And then how complex, you know, engine systems and all that, paint, you can add significant time there. But the base building is probably about 600 to 700 hours. Which is incredible compared to like a 2,000 to 3,000 hour build on some of the other aircraft out there. Yeah, and a lot of that's simplified by, you know, the blind riveting. It just goes together really quickly. You don't have to learn a skill. You can teach anyone how to set up a pop rivet correctly in like two minutes versus years worth of learning how to drive rivets efficiently and not make cosmetic mistakes everywhere. So it does open up a lot of possibility. Dynon Avionics at Dynon.com. Offering everything from state-of-the-art glass cockpit options to advanced control modules that power and control your entire aircraft. Gradia Aero Group at Gradia.aero. Proudly representing these best-in-class brands for experimental general aviation. Sherwings, Beattie Aviation, and MWFly. Stewart Systems, manufacturer of non-hazardous waterborne products for covering and painting aircraft. Offering in-depth workshops teaching you how to DIY fabric and paint. Find them online at stewartsystems.aero. Wicks Aircraft Supply, providing all the things for you to build, restore, and maintain your aircraft. Find them online at wicksaircraft.com and on YouTube for all your aviation supplies and starting right now, use code EAC10 during checkout to get 10% off. Find links in the description below that will direct you to special offers. Visit us online at experimentalaircraftchannel.com for all things DIY aviation and consider supporting us on our Patreon page to help us bring you more original aviation content. So this being a sport design, is it going to be maintained as a tailwheel or be a nosewheel option eventually? So this airframe is actually set up as both. It has the landing gear mounts for both tricycle gear and tail dragger in it. We're going to fly this one as a tail dragger. The second one we build is going to truly be convertible back and forth between tail dragger and tri-gear. It's definitely both configurations. And speculation of course, because you have to actually test this, but what are you assuming the speeds are going to be for this one? It should be very similar to a similarly equipped engine RV. We projected it should do 200 miles an hour true at 8,000 feet density altitude at normal cruise power. And that falls in basically with other airplanes with the same engine and same size and everything. So I don't think we're not doing anything earth shattering in terms of aerodynamics. It's very, very traditional. And the cockpit space, is it very similar to the Panther? Did you widen, lengthen? It's the same 28 inches. It's the same room from the seat back to the firewall, which makes it with the rear seat, it's about three inches overall longer than RV8. And the rear cockpit especially, as you can see the line of the canopy, the rear seat occupant sits a little higher than the front seat person. So you got a little better visibility, but it has a full canopy, like you can take your jacket off in the back seat, your head's not sticking up into a little bubble. So it's more like an extra or maybe a Harman Rocket or something that has a full size rear cockpit and canopy not, again, not your head sticking up into a little bubble. So rear seat comfort especially is much better. Is there any room left for a little bit of baggage for cross country flight? Yeah, you can. And there's also a forward baggage compartment up front, so you can help with center of gravity for the tandem seat airplane, you know, shift things around. I'm not going to hold you to this, but when do you think this might be flying, end of the year? Yeah. It's nearly together now, but... It's my primary focus, this is a personal project at this time, we'll see how it evolves going down after we get it flying and how we like it and all that. So I'm working on it essentially full time these days, and probably about six weeks we'll be ready for the inspection, and then we'll roll into flight testing as it's weather and all that stuff. So this year definitely we'll be flying it. Okay, and Sport Performance Aviation is your company, where are you based, and how can somebody get in touch with you to ask more about this? We're based just south of Jacksonville, Florida, and flywithspa.com is our website, and that's how you get in touch with us. Quick shout out to our patrons over on Patreon, and our co-pilot status, Zach Newsome, Mike Babcock, Lynn Gardner, Gary Martin, Michael Smith, and Steph Sabo. Thanks for watching this episode of the Experimental Aircraft Channel. Remember to like, subscribe, and hit that bell, so you don't miss a single episode. See you in the next one!