Better than a Quickie?

This is going to be controversial. There was an airplane that I consider to be better than a Quickie Q1. I saw it fly at the Mangalore Air Show in 1984 and shortly after that the designer was killed testing a new prototype. He was a victim of a bad law that wouldn't allow him to fly over 500 ft in an ultralight at that time.

Here are the specs, judge for yourself:

Length: 8' 1 <---- !!!
Wingspan: 17' 7
Height: 3' 3
Wing area: 75 sq ft
Empty: 172 lb
Gross: 414 lb
Engine: 24 hp
Fuel (US): 7 gall
Max speed: 124 mph
Cruise: 112 mph
Stall: 38 mph <---- !!!
Climb: 670 ft/min
Wing Load: 5.1 lb/sq ft <---- !!!
Takeoff: 300 ft
Landing: 300 ft
Range: 450 mi
Efficiency: 80 mpg @ 90 mph (1.3 gall/hr)

Fully trailerable without disassembly. And here she is: The Ligeti Stratos.



Heretical maybe, but I'd love to be able to buy one. The designer's son actually open-sourced the design then recanted a few years ago, and is now trying to sell it as a military aircraft. How sad. The one you see in the video below still exists, right here in Melbourne. It hasn't flown in over 25 years.

YouTube video of this remarkable craft flying:

There's one more contender for the title, the Cri Cri. However it's a major piece of work to build (2000+ hours) and runs on model aircraft 2-stroke engines, which aren't known for being frugal on the juice or particularly reliable. The other little problem is that you need a full PPL with a twin engine rating to fly one.



Still, it's fully aerobatic and you can imagine being in a dogfight I guess, if you're into that sort of thing. Me, I just want a practical and economical airplane.