Anyone here live near Melbourne Florida, USA?

[Lionheart]

Hey all,

Anyone here live near Melbourne Florida, near the airport?



Bill
LHC

[LordAkshay798]

Hey all,

Anyone here live near Melbourne Florida, near the airport?



Bill
LHC

Yes, i live about 10 minute drive away from it.

[Chacha]

Dang,

I can zoom and be there in a few hours!

[Lionheart]

ChaCha... Not good. Several hours is not close, lol...

Thanks though.



Bill

[Sieggie]

I'm basically in the down wind pattern for 9R or 9L

Sieggie
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[Lionheart]

Hey Sieggie,


Have you by chance seen this plane there? Can you see if the owners of it are on the airport grounds or perhaps get a phone number from them?

The plane is called an Atlantica, the company that made it is Wingco.com and the person that designed it is Allen Shaw, but nothing can be found on him for contact. No phone numbers work, no email addresses work. But this photo seems to be recent, so I am wondeirng if the plane is still being worked on by someone there local.

This is a newer version of the plane with gear bays in the belly. The yellow prototype was a fixed gear plane. This could also be the prototype buck though that first came out of the molds and perhaps had gear bays back then before Yellow came along.

[Sieggie]

I have not seen it but will sniff around and see if I can find out anything about it.

Dave
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[Lionheart]

Thanks Dave. Massively appreciated.


Bill

[Sieggie]

Went over to the airport, found the gate number N378V in the background of the image but that number is on a gate with big fuel tanks now so I think the picture is older than you think.

I talked to the mechanic from the FBO right next to the gate and he thinks he remembers seeing the plane a while back but does not know who owns it. He said he thinks it is a Velocity but I don't see the required canard in the picture for a Rutan designed aircraft. Maybe the same call for someone near Merritt Island or south to Valkaria airport. Both airports have lots of experimentals because they are uncontrolled fields and the FBO there is a little more liberal then Melbourne with the aircraft.

Dave
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[Lionheart]

Dave,

Youre awesome man! Thanks for checking.

Man, I hope the airplane isnt totally gone.

The owner was also making a Velocity and I think he made wings for builders.

Its a very wild design. Pam (Warchild) found this thing at Airliners.net. Its quite similar to the new Boeing Blended Wing design, having a lifting body, no canards, thin wings. It causes uncontrolled drueling issues. Bad on keyboards.

Thanks again for checking on this. Greatly appreciated.


Bill

[falcon409]

. . . . .He said he thinks it is a Velocity but I don't see the required canard in the picture for a Rutan designed aircraft. . . . . .Dave
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Funny cause even before you mentioned that, my first impression was that it looked like a futuristic version of the Velocity. I spent 7 months working on one to get it into flying condition for a client. They are very cool airplanes. . .wish I had gotten a ride in it before he took it to Oshkosh. I did look at the Velocity website and it doesn't appear to be one of their airplanes. . .at least not yet. . .heck they're only about 23miles down the coast from Melbourne. . .maybe they're hiding it there for the time being, lol.

[SADT]

Hi,

Anyone know its performance specs - that thing looks seriously fast!

[Lionheart]

Hi,

Anyone know its performance specs - that thing looks seriously fast!

Unfortunately, it never flew. Well, it did once for high speed taxi, accidently climbed right up in the air, and the pilot stalled it, smacked it down on the tarmac, cracking the wings and caving in the landing gear.


Beauty of a plane, eh? I want to make that one BAD!!!!!

[Sundog]

I know someone who was looking at investing in that project. It had serious control and stability issues. The last I had heard, they were considering adding twin tail booms and a horizontal tail to fix the problems, but that was around three or four years ago.

[Lionheart]

I know someone who was looking at investing in that project. It had serious control and stability issues. The last I had heard, they were considering adding twin tail booms and a horizontal tail to fix the problems, but that was around three or four years ago.

Thats interesting to know. Thanks for the heads up Sundog.

I had heard that someone mentioned it needed canards or something. Too bad they cant just make that design work. The Boeing BWB prototype seems to fly just fine. Some thought their swept wing percentage was just too drastic and would inherit handling issues at low speeds.