Brian Carpenter of Tangent Aircraft Development in Corning, California is crafting one of the more exotic ultralight aircraft in the history of ultralights. Your editor visited his shop in late September, and viewed progress at that point. Brian had most of the previously clecoed fuselage disassembled, and was weighing parts and options for shaving ounces. He has now turned to producing an on-line newsletter to keep followers posted. In his first EMG-5 newsletter, Brian provides a quick look at the rapid reassembly and refinement that has taken place since. “The month of October has been our first full month to work uninterrupted on the project. We have made significant gains on the prototype as well as tooling for the aircraft. The flight control systems are now 80% complete. The landing gear system is nearly 90% complete. The tail assembly is approximately 70% complete. The thrust vectoring system is completed with the exception of the fairings and canard. The motor, …
EMG-5 Electric Motorglider
This isn’t Brian Carpenter’s first time at the small airplane rodeo. He’s built at least a dozen aircraft, designed several from scratch, and even entertained the hosts of TV’s Mythbusters series with a series of rides in his team’s ultralights. His latest creation at Tangent Aircraft is a sleek Part 103 ultralight that seems to break or bend the rules on several fronts, presenting a twin-pivoting-motored, Fowler-flapped, retractable-gear craft that would seem to be too complex to fall into legal 103 status – or even into something the average novice private pilot would be allowed to fly. The 36-foot span and 105-square-foot wing would seem too fast to meet stall limits. Carpenter explained his design philosophy to your editor a few days ago, and he said the greatest challenge of meeting part 103 regulations was attaining the stall speed requirement with the small wing area. Normal, unflapped ultralights need about 140 square feet to meet the 27.6 mph stall speed. …