Quickie Aircraft Corp. vs Mulan

Here is a link to the crash report as well:

www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/brief.asp?ev_id=20020917X04543&key=1

I think it's interesting that Mullan didn't even call his Airplane a "Quickie"

Oddly, he called it a "J.A.MULLAN DRAGONFLY" I'm glad that the higher court overturned the ruling.

I think that QAC was allowed to go bankrupt for the simple fact that it lost Tom Jewett the charismatic half of its leadership. I spoke to Gene Sheehan on the phone, and he lacks a "certain charm" to say the least.

A lot of builders sent money to QAC to help with the legal defense, and were turned off by the outcome.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Dan Yager
www.quickheads.com

I have never seen Mullan's plane, but we have to remember that each one of these is hand crafted by an individual builder, so each one comes out a little different.

A builder could definitely build a plane that was easy to spin, simply by screwing up the angle of incidence on the canard. One of the things that makes a Quickie stable is that the Angle of Incidence on the canard is set a few degrees higher than the main wing. This ensures that the canard stalls before the main wing, which drops the nose, and keeps both surfaces flying.

QAC was adament that builders not call their planes a "Quickie" if they deviated from the plans, this is why I find Mullan's name change interesting.

I don't think that Mullan's name for his airplane had anything to do with the " Viking Dragonfly " which was a scaled up two seater version of the single seat Quickie. He may have just named it that because it looks. . . well. . . kinda like a Dragonfly. That's just my opinion though.

Although, the NTSB stated that the reason for the crash was UNDETERMINED, they did place a lot of resposibility on the PIC.

I do think it's sad that some people lash out and have a "blame everyone else but me" mentality. (Which I think is why some people are sue happy.)

I think I would have been happy to survive at all, and I think that it's a testament to the Quickie design's durability.

All that being said, I think that some good came out of the lawsuit. "Mullan vs. Quickie Aircraft Corporation" shows up as a precessedent in subsequent Federal Court cases involving product liability. My hope is that this case will protect other kit manufacturers from lawsuits in the future.

This is a great discussion.

Thanks guys,
Dan Yager
www.quickheads.com