When I was first called to the city's West Village for an event called Flipping the Bird, I was not prepared for what I embarking upon. I had heard that there was an experimental airplane being built, and the builder, Russ Barcelona, was looking for help to flip the plane upside down so that he could sand the bottom a bit easier. This, I had to see. You might say that Russ is a genius of sorts. He claims to have hand built a roadster out of fiberglass in 1967, and 1969 he designed and built an electric powered car with a bunch of UB students. Now Russ is about to embark on the journey of a lifetime. His latest project is building a Cozy Mark IV plane. I asked Russ what on earth he was thinking when he set out to build this incredible machine. From Russ:
"There are about 200 in existence. It's made for cross-country flights. The original designer was Burt Rutan who built The Voyager that flew around the world on one tank of gas. The design dates back from the late 60s - a two-passenger version. I've been working on this project for 17 years. The same composite structure design was used to build the stealth bomber and the latest military jet aircraft wings (because of its one-piece construction, it's light weight and bulletproof). It also cannot be picked up by radar. The plane is constructed of epoxy fiberglass and seats four and flies at 200 miles an hour, with an 1100-mile range on one tank of gas. The next generation (six passenger), called the Beechcraft Starship, costs 6.4 million dollars, but that's commercially made. It looks exactly the same, but bigger."
The date for the initial test flight will be at Niagara Falls Air Force Base in April of 2011. We'll be there for take off.
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"There are about 200 in existence. It's made for cross-country flights. The original designer was Burt Rutan who built The Voyager that flew around the world on one tank of gas. The design dates back from the late 60s - a two-passenger version. I've been working on this project for 17 years. The same composite structure design was used to build the stealth bomber and the latest military jet aircraft wings (because of its one-piece construction, it's light weight and bulletproof). It also cannot be picked up by radar. The plane is constructed of epoxy fiberglass and seats four and flies at 200 miles an hour, with an 1100-mile range on one tank of gas. The next generation (six passenger), called the Beechcraft Starship, costs 6.4 million dollars, but that's commercially made. It looks exactly the same, but bigger."
The date for the initial test flight will be at Niagara Falls Air Force Base in April of 2011. We'll be there for take off.
You mentioned commercial cost, how much is this costing Russ?
I was a ground-pounder so I am not an aviator by any means, but I can tell you there is no such thing as bulletproof. Bullet-resistant, sure. Also, "cannot be picked up by radar" should loosely be interpreted. It's not impossible, just more difficult.