Hi - Aerospace Student here :)_

[justathena]

Hi everyone,

My name is Athena and i'm an aerospace engineering student. Im currently doing a large project on the conceptual design phase of a two-seater canard configuration kit aircraft. Just thougth this would be a good place to start with my market reaserach and finding out a bit more about the differnt aircraft available out there, and what kit builders look for.

[John D. Wages]

Originally Posted by justathena

Hi everyone,

My name is Athena and i'm an aerospace engineering student. Im currently doing a large project on the conceptual design phase of a two-seater canard configuration kit aircraft. Just thougth this would be a good place to start with my market reaserach and finding out a bit more about the differnt aircraft available out there, and what kit builders look for.

Hi Athena!

Most of the builders on this site are building from plans, not kits. That means that we start with raw materials and cut, bend, shape, and/or manipulate those materials into something we hope can be propelled into the sky and hopefully stay there for awhile. Sometimes we get an impulse to "Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate" what we've tried to accomplish but failed. Other times we accomplish tasks we thought would be impossible, and give ourselves a great big "". Anyway, welcome to this forum. There are a lot of very knowledgable...knowlegeable....nauledgable....."Sm art" people here that are more than willing to share with you any of that knowledge.

[argoldman]

Greetings Athena,

One place to look for the two place canard kit type is the website dedicated to the Q-2, and Q-200 aircraft. These Kits were manufactured by the Quickie company (now in bankruptcy), however if you get to their forum, or BB, you will be able to pick the brains of those who have those aircraft. The Q birds (as they are called) were only available as a kit.

Additionally, there was the Dragonfly, a similar appearing, but different aircraft. Molds were pulled off of the prototype and in addition to being available as a plans-built aircraft, it was (and still may be) available as a kit affectionately called the snapdragonfly. They also have a forum or BB

A contact names for each is: Q-birds Jim Masel and Dragonfly Spud Spornitz.

Good luck with your studies

[neverquit]

and what kit builders look for.

Wow! The simple answer to that is as big as the universe. For a variety of plans and kits available go to the Kitplanes website. They have a catalog and CDs of available plans and kits.

Focusing on canard kits other than listed prior, there's the household canard kit name Velocity.

Look in our Wiki or links here for more info. The www.cozybuilder.org and Central States newsletters are another great resource. You will soon find we are one big family sharing ideas and friendships.

If there are specific questions, start a new thread! That's what we do.

Greg

[Andrew Anunson]

A couple things some kit builders might look for is (including me as a plans builder)
1.) A flying prototype
2.) Flying finished products built from the actual "kit" or plans
3.) Internet groups which provide builder support
4.) Good value (some kits cost more than a similar complete flying airplane).
5.) A great safety record, with no crashes resulting from the airplanes flying qualities (or lack of).
6.) Kit available from established kit company. Nobody wants to purchase a kit and then the manufacturer goes out of business.

There are many more, but these are a few that come to mind.

[justathena]

Hey guys, thanks for all the replies, i'll probobly be on here a lot when i start designing my plane asking all sorts of questions At the moment I'm just doing some market reasearch to draw up a project specifications (all the specs that i want my plane to be, weight, height, stall speed, max cruise speed, etc)