Quad City Challenger II
 
FTLComm - Tisdale - Monday, June 11, 2007

This is a Melfort based version of a 2005 ultralight with a fifty horse power Rotex engine and can carry up to 500 pounds of passengers and fuel. Its legal take-off weight is 362.87 Kilograms.

The Quad City Challenger II aircraft's airframe is built in a factory in Moline Illinois and then the owner assembled it put on the covering and installed the engine and instruments to create a legal aircraft that weights less than 200 pounds. Canadian requirements are slight different than those in the United States so there is a Canadian distributor of the machine and the aircraft conforms to Canadian standards.

The delux 582 version of this machine costs a little more than $30,000 Canadian and takes about 200 hours to assemble in a garage without the need of special tools or skills to build. For $7,500 you can have it built for you.

There are more than 3,000 of these in the world this one is number 2040 and they have a heated cabin, can be fitted with amphibian floats or put on skiies. It will get off the ground and land in around 100 feet and can attain an altitude of 14,000 reaching a top speed of 96 miles an hour but able to land at 28 mph. With its big wing and slim body it can take twenty minutes to glide back to the ground over a distance of eleven miles in an engine off glide. With only ten US gallons of fuel aboard it has an endurance of less than three hours but just soaring or flight for sight seeing purposes it can remain aloft for up to five hours.

Ultra light aircraft require a pilot's license in Canada.

 
 
Timothy W. Shire
 

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Editor : Timothy W. Shire
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