George,

I love the idea of fitting a fan to the Mini Imp. I've always liked this
little plane -- and it's said to fly very nicely. Its configuration is
Taylor-made for a buried fan duct, pardon the pun.

http://www.mini-imp.com/index.htm

I like the shoulder-mounted wing too -- this is the wing placement I had
in mind for my personal-jet size plane. Compared to a low-wing
airplane, it gives more of a "fighter" look, a la Alpha jet or similar.



This would be a neat little sport plane with a small rotary, perhaps one
of the all-aluminum jobs putting out 80 hp or so. These engines are
incredibly compact and light and are liquid cooled. With a nice little
duct buried inside that fuselage, it would be perfect.


Who cares if it's a little less efficient than a prop? So you burn 4
gallons an hour, instead of 3. I think lots of people would be willing
to make that trade.


Regards,


Gordon

Thanks, Gordon.  I've had a legal set of plans for these birds for several
years.  From my point of view the real trick is to take some of the
construction manhours out of the aircraft.  There are two versions.  A short
nose and a stretched long-nose with beefed structure and gear for heavier
engines.  The nose stretch required addition of a vertical stabilizer versus
the inverted V of the short nose prototype.  I had a long talk with Molt
about these aircraft in 1988 at his shop, he also showed me his Bullet
2-seater design (an interesting subject for another day).  Molt was as cheap
as a Kentucky mule-skinner about materials utilization (I admire that), but
retained a 30's- 40's view of labor intensity.  He came up when labor was
cheap and materials were dear.

Things are pretty much reversed these days.
So reduction in labor intensity is a consideration.  Especially for
pre-retirement types like me.  A terrific guy has been running Mini-Imp, but
was a victim of the Delta airline pilot pension melt-down and is looking for
someone ethical and savvy to take over the operation.  the Mini-Imp is not a
big seller.  Gary has already set up laser-cut sheet metal kits and talked
about low-cost pre-assembled modules for some of the structures.  I don't
know how far he got on that.  There is a builder's web-site (free).  Anyway,


I'm more interested in the short-nose version of the aircraft.  there was
also a shorter version yet called the Micro-Imp.  It suffered from lack of
power and was truly experimental in being built of something called Taylor
Paper-Glass.  Not surprisingly, this "poor man's composite" wasn't really
that light and performance suffered accordingly.  I've corresponded with the
pilot (a brave man) and discovered that the Micro-Imp actually flew very
well.  But it took a mechanically-actuated variable pitch prop to get it off
the ground (the pilot ran about 225 lbs).  The last I heard of the prototype
it had been flogged to a teenager around Vancouver, Wa to be used as ???
The powerplant was to be a modified Citroen 2CV auto engine.  I know a
little about this one because Joe Horvath tried to turbo-charge one for me
about 1980 for use on a hot-air blimp I built under license from Cameron in
England.  Light, very quiet with the turbo, and didn't do dink because Joe
couldn't get the turbo over the step.  The blimp ended up with a 582 rotax
and now lives in Miami with a lawyer.

The point of this ramble is that I
keep hoping someone will either come up with a Mazda-based aluminum
single-rotor or that the Rota-Max single-rotor will turn out to not
self-distruct.  Both would seem to me to be candidate drivers for a ducted
fan Mini-Imp.  A twin-rotor Mazda would be pretty marginal from a weight
standpoint.  As for the twin-Rota-Max?  Who knows???  I've been seeing a
statement that sweep tests on the twin-rotor are pending for 10 months.
They do have one for the single-rotor on their web-site.  Paul seems to
think that they're in bed with Moller.

I don't know whether they are just
licensing the engines or bought the rights.  Paul seems to know the main guy
from their engine development program, so perhaps his lack of confidence in
the Rota-Max is based upon more than his opinion of Moller's securities
track record?  Anyway, It is certainly possible to design a piston-engine
installation (area ruling here we come).  But I'd really like to see a small
rotary in an aircraft that would get some attention.  The Mini-Imp is a
single seat design and not really easily stretchable to a two-placer.  So
building one isn't really justifiable in terms of financial reward.  But if
workable it might be fun.

George W


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