Sopwith
Camel replica, Airdrome Aeroplanes Sopwith Camel experimental lightsport aircraft, Light Sport Aircraft Pilot News
newsmagazine.
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Light Sport Aircraft Pilot is a directory of aircraft that generally fit
into what are described as ultralight aircraft, advanced ultralight
aircraft,
light sport aircraft, experimental light sport aircraft, experimental
aircraft, amateur built aircraft, ELSA or homebuilt
aircraft in the United States and Canada. These include
weight shift aircraft, more commonly known as trikes,
powered parachutes, and powered para-gliders.
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Airdrome Aeroplanes
Sopwith Camel, experimental
lightsport, amateur built aircraft.
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When you look at the
ultralight/experimental amateur built aircraft category you will find that many of the designs have
developed a "niche" market.
That is the designer has found a group of aviators that are
interested in his design or style of aircraft. Robert Baslee
started designing for his "niche" market back in the mid
90's and has not look back since.
His "niche" is the
builder/pilot who is looking for WWI replica aircraft. To
date Robert has produced over 20 designs. This year at
Airventure 2010 he introduced his latest design a full scale
Sopwith Camel.
The original
Sopwith Camel was
a British World
War I single-seat biplane built in
1917. It had a short-coupled fuselage, was powered by a rotary
engine and was
equipped with twin synchronized machine
guns. |
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The Airdrome Aeroplanes full scale Sopwith Camel is powered
by a 150 HP Rotec Radial engine. The fuselage is a 4130
welded steel fuselage, which is a departure from Airdromes
usual fuselage construction technique which uses rivet
together aluminum construction. The rest of the plane does
uses aluminum rivet together construction. Robert became
involved in the project when a customer, who had wanted to
build a Camel for years approached him at a show he
was attending in Texas.
The customer had been gathering parts for
years, and had an original instrument panel, ignition
switches and data tag from a Camel! He asked Robert "can we
build a plane around these?"
Robert started the project by
first gathering as many pictures and as much information as he could
find about the original Sopwith Camel. From this he designed the
plane, did the structural analysis work, produced a set of
plans, and then began production of the plane. Robert
indicates with the "customer authenticity" requirement of
the build the plane took about 500 hours to complete, with the
only major difference being the location of the fuel tank,
which has been moved forward to better fit into the CG of
the plane.
The plane was custom built over a period of
about six months. The first flights on the plane proved to
be very impressive with performance figures very close to
the original aircraft, stall speed is below 40 mph, cruise
comes in at 80 mph and climb is a conservative 1000 feet per
minute. Robert also indicates that a pilot can release the
stick at
45 mph and start adding power on up to 90 mph with no trim
change!
The customer has a number
of warbirds and plans on flying his latest addition to local
airshows and flyins.
For more
information:
Airdrome Aeroplanes
929 NW Road 1571
Holden MO 64040
816-230-8585
www.airdromeaeroplanes.com
rbaslee@yahoo.com |
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Airdrome Aeroplanes Sopwith
Camel
experimental amateur built lightsport aircraft |
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