The flap deflection is limited to allow downward movement of the “ailerons” without stalling the surface. The flaperons are carefully designed airfoils that serve as both high-lift devices and roll-control surfaces. The flaperons remained the same, and instead of leading edge slats, the wing features vortex generators on its upper leading edge. So he designed a new set of wings with greater span, greater chord, and a customized, under-cambered airfoil. But McBean was convinced that, with a different airfoil, they could do better. I have shoehorned those airplanes into marvelously short strips after winding down Idaho mountain canyons and landed with room to spare.
The basic Kitfox wing is efficient and yields a good cruise speed of close to 120 mph. That’s another good reason for having a flying test bed-developing options for builders who want to buy a specific configuration la carte.
With Kitfox, it’s easy to talk with John McBean to work up a package that meets your requirements from the many things the company has created. You can most likely also convince the company to provide you with the Titan engine option, although they are still working on optimizing cooling and prop pitch. The new wing has been offered by Kitfox as the S7 STi since last year. Sporting a high-lift STOL wing and a Titan X340 carbureted engine putting out 180 hp, it was a fun airplane to steer around the sky-and to dabble with on the ground.ĭespite what I’ve said about this being a development test bed, you can buy the options required to build one. We recently got a chance to fly the airplane in its current configuration. But it has been modified in a number of ways with various wing and engine configurations to see just what can be done with that basic design. Painted silver with bold green stripes, N81KA is, basically, a straight Super Sport at heart. Kitfox has just such an airplane, and you have probably seen it around. Ideally, that test plane shouldn’t be the company owner’s personal airplane because they generally want to fly that-a lot! Building a dedicated airframe to try out different design innovations costs a little, but a company that dedicates the funds to do so can make a lot of interesting discoveries and observations. Every good airplane designer needs a development airplane-something to use to try out new ideas and experiment with upgrades and the evolution of the design.
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