What ever happened to the Foot Launch Air Cycle from Striplin Aircraft?

Hi, Keith.

   A member of my EAA Chapter 350- Monmouth Illinois became a dealer for the Striplin Ranger ( tailed version) back in the mid 80's. He completed a 2-seater and flew it to Oshkosh- I think  in 1985. I flew along with him in my Mitchell Wing B-10. He was on the cover of "The Experimenter" - might have been the earlier EAA Ultralight Magazine. You might check with Mary Jones at headquarters (sorry Mary) for a possible back issue/ article. He had several shall we say "adventures" during the development and test flying of the bird. I do know of one other that I heard of near St Louis. A friend of mine told me of a crash caused by wing strut failure. Seems the lower end of the strut was attached to the landing gear which flexed. This caused flexing in the upper strut/ wing spar attachment. The problem was it wasn't supposed to flex resulting in a failure of the attachment... I  believe the FLAC was light enough that it didn't have the strut. I also looked at the FLAC  and another composite UL- the canard winged Goldwing (still have the plans). I finally settled on the Mitchell Wing B-10 (wooden wing- Mother Nature's composite material) and had many adventures of my own with it.

                                                                                   Richard Anderson

Not a lot on the web about Ken, seems he went into other things after the death of his son.

Some discussions on one of the Yahoo groups;

Hello Richard and Arthur,

    I'm glad to see that somebody has finally responded to my post! Richard, I remember the Mitchell name, but had to look up the B-10 online to see what it looked like. I don't know if I've ever seen one personally, but it does look like it was a fun plane to build and fly.

    As far as researching back issues of EAA publications, I did that about 8 years ago and obtained all that was available. My curiousity compelled me to post my question since the articles I had found, I don't believe, ever really said what happened to Ken or his designs. And, Arthur, that's too bad the moulds were lost. I think somebody could have done something with them.

    I'm wondering, is it just me, or are there other ultralight people out there who would like to see composite ultralight designs? Nowadays, all you typically see are the aluminum tube & ripstop nylon designs. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against those types of ultralights, but that's all you see these days. With maybe the exception of powered parachutes. Still though, I do have a place in my heart for "plastic planes." --- That's probably why I like to always stay abreast of what Burt Rutan is up to as well. Now there's a guy who knows how to build plastic planes! (I know, I'm stating the obvious, but what can I say?)

    Well, anyway, thanks for the feedback guys. Let's hear some more from others too! --- Keith Emond
     

Hi Keith, I bought kit number 3 from Ken Striplin back in 1979 of 1980  cant remember.  I was living near Detroit back then and had the kit actually delivered to me by Paul Striplin. I was well into the construction of my kit, when Paul was killed. It took all of the enthusiasm for the project out of me. I was pretty comfortable with the flying wing design having flown Hang Gliders in Northern Michigan for years. i had the pleasure of meeting Ken Striplin at Oshkosh and could see he was deeply hurt by Pauls death. I give Ken credit for actually changing my whole career path. My first exposure (literally) to composites was due to him. I have since designed 3 composite ultralight airplane, one I actually put into production was called the Wren. My FLAC kit motivated me to take an educational leave of absence from Ford Motor Company and attend Michigan State university working toward an eventual engineering degree. I have now spent the last 30 years working as an aircraft designer for almost every major airframer. I have worked on the Beech Starship and the Raytheon Premier 1 to the Boeing 787 all composite airliner, and I owe it all to purchasing my FLAC kit. I held on to that FLAC kit for many years, eventually i sold it to Clyde Leach of Bentonville Ark. I don't know what happened to it after that point. I will say that I did learn quite a few interesting composite techniques building that kit, but I do question the design of the main spar and wing fittings. It might have been a good thing I never flew that plane.

Mark Calder

I didnt read all of your posts, my avitar is the logo of my new all composite ultralight.  I'm new to this Oshkosh360 forum, so I dont know where I can post pictures. My friend back in Wichita was Steve Wood, the designer of the Sky Pup, my new design the "Robin" borrows heavily on some of his construction techniques along with some new nes of my own. i am using pultruded carbon rods and flats for my main spar cap and I have set up a full Vacuum Resin Infusion shop to build the spar shear web and other molded componants. Eventually I will be selling plans and offering molded componants. I am just now finishing up the second wing panel. I have completed the  empennage already. i am on track to fly sometime this winter and if I am ready, I will try to attend the Lakeland fly in.

Mark, you can place pictures on any forum post. I don't think any of us has figured out the HTML or other coding required, but Brady Lane discovered a simple procedure:

"Here is the work-around I use to post an image: The image has to first be hosted somewhere online (Flickr or some other website). Then I open up a separate browser window with the webpage that has the image on it and simply drag and drop the image to the message window here on Oshkosh365.  If that doesn't work, try right-clicking the image to copy it, then paste the image in the message window.  Hope this helps."

Whether cut & paste or drag & drop, it works,well. Examples:

Well i tried cutting and pasting and that didn't work. Then I tried to drag the image from my document and I got logged off!!!!   I do not have any images of my new plane hosted on a public server. I just remember that a friend published this picture on a Yahoo site, lets see if this works!!!!

looks like it works!!!    These are the tail feathers for my new bird, the "Robin"   This is an ultralight motorglider, it is roughly patterned after an airplane I consider to be one of the most beautiful ever designed, the Fourier RF4D

if you were to overlay the 3 view of each plane they would be almost identical, with the exception of the Robins wing plan view, which is a constant chord.   The construction of these tail feathers are wood and foam. I have a total of two weeks time in the construction of what is shown. I have far more than that in design and analysis however. The wings are also complete and I am now starting the construction of the fuselage. The weight so far is under control, I have a small margin left under the 254 weight limit.  This is no small feat for a plane with a 40 foot cantilever wing designed to 6.2 g ultimate load. I have to be religious on the weight. I do have some conservative estimates for the parts that are yet to be built, my estimates have tracked perfectly so far. The biggest risk left will be the landing gear, I have a pretty unique design that uses carbon pultrusions and a Spruce wood core. It is really light and in fact is about the lightest gear I have seen based on a percentage of the empty weight, because of this it is a bit of a risk.   if I can figure out how to post more pictures I will.

Mark

 

Looking Good!  Do you post to Fly 5K?  Looks like a nice goal. 

 I love the Viera, but would like to see a homebuilt version. 

 I spent a little time looking at the pultruded spar designs

on the flying wing glider sites and was waiting for someone to

try this!  Keep us posted

I am on the Fly 5 k site, but I haven't posted anything yet. Something about getting the cart before the horse. I also like the Viera, I have a similar wing attach design. I do not think the mono wheel will be too popular in the States however. I have watched the youtube videos and it looked like they could easily damage that thing on a grass field. I am a little skeptical however of the plus and minus 9" g"  claim given the fact that on their you tube video of the test they were sweating bullets at 4.2 "G" ultimate

I'm quite enamored with these pultruded products. I doubt I would ever design anything without them again. If cost were no issue you could design a truss structure fuselage that would be ultralightweight. Economically they are more than cost competitive than  Sitka Spruce, in fact  after my wing was finished and tested, I figure the Graphite rods were 1/2 the cost and 1/4 the weight. A word here about designing with them is in order, you definitely have to size a structure based on deflection rather than load. I built a full size test wing and loaded it to 6.2 g ultimate. I was not able to break the wing because the tip deflected 42 inches and hit the ground. My test fixture was only 42 inches off the ground. I then went back to the drawing board and recalculated based on a 20 inch deflection and I ended up with almost double the amount of graphite I started with. I really wish we could post pictures because I would post some pictures of the test.

On the final spar design I have gone to a rectangular flat section .50 x .063 This is the thickest section you can buy that can be coiled. The shipping costs would be too prohibitive if you used a thicker section. I love these products because they will make them as long as you want.   the company by the way is Avia  Sport  Composites

http://aviasportcomposites.com/store/index.php?manufacturers_id=11 

Mr Calder-I am very interested in your RF-4D Motorglider revision. Do you have a three view or more pictures? I am quite interested in the construction, it seems similar to the sky pup, but more refined and sanded! Thanks.

Glenn Campbell
Farmington Hills, MI, 48331

Hey Glen, sorry I havent checked back on this forum in a while. Steve Wood is a good friend of mine. we worked together in Wichita at cessna. I do owe a lot of inspiration to the Sky Pup, but as you have observed, I wanted the robin to be a lot cleaner. I am posting some pictures of the fuselage inboard side profile, the solid 3d model of the wfuselage truss (everything in that picture weighs 23 lbs) and a picture of the completed wings. if any one has any more questions I can be reached at planebuilder@yahoo.com