Quickie Aircraft

Quickie Aircraft
IndustryHomebuilt Aircraft
Founded1978 (1978) in Mojave, California, United States
Founder
    • Gene Sheehan co-founder and designer
    • Tom Jewett co-founder and designer
Defunct1986 (1986)
FateBankrupt due to lawsuit
Key people
Products

The Quickie Aircraft Corporation was founded in Mojave, California, in 1978 to market the Quickie homebuilt aircraft (models Quickie, Quickie Q2, and Quickie Q200 aircraft). The original single-seater Quickie was designed by Burt Rutan and company founders Gene Sheehan and Tom Jewett. The two-seater Q2 and Q200 were designed by Canadian Garry LeGare, Jewett and Sheehan.[1] While the Q2 and Q200 were based on the original Quickie, the design was completely different. Now defunct, the company sold over 2,000 kits in its lifetime.

The Quickie's canard wing used a GU25-5(11)8 airfoil, developed by Terence Nonweiler. It suffered performance degradation at low Reynolds numbers and in rainy conditions.[2]

The QAC was sued and lost a legal battle due to the crash of a single place Quickie. The judgement was overturned by an appeals court, but the financial damage had been done. Then, partner Tom Jewett was killed in the crash of a different aircraft design. The Quickie Aircraft Corporation - leaderless and fiscally strapped - went bankrupt in 1986.[3]

  • QAC Quickie Q2 in flight
  • QAC Quickie Q2, canopy up
  • QAC Quickie Q2, side view
  • Opening turn in the 2023 Bluegrass 150 air race.

References

  1. ^ Kocivar, Ben (August 1981). "180 MPH Kit Canard". Popular Science. pp. 58–60. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  2. ^ Galbraith, R. A. McD (1985-09-01). "The aerodynamic characteristics of a GU25-5(11)8 aerofoil for low Reynolds numbers". Experiments in Fluids. 3 (5): 253–256. doi:10.1007/BF00281769. ISSN 0723-4864. S2CID 117849066.
  3. ^ "Jewett's 'Big Bird'". www.check-six.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.

Media related to Quickie Aircraft Corporation at Wikimedia Commons


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.