Quickie Q2

[supert300]

Has anybody out there flown a Quickie Q2? If so I would appreciate some hints and tips on flying one.

Regards,

ST300

[Skylark4]

You need to talk to a chap at Enstone last I heard. I think the name is Steve McCurdie or similar. If someone knows better, please post a correction. He used to, and may still, run a business finishing Europas and the like with a sideline speciality of refurbing Quickies. He is the guy who owns/owned the only Rutan Defiant on the UK Register. He has more time than anyone else on the type.
Check the hours flown on all the examples you come across. Few seem to exceed 100.
BEagle has flown one.

Mike W

[Dan Dare]

Do NOT fly it wet or in the rain

[Skylark4]

Unless you have the later section front wing.
Some were made with a 'conventional' tricycle u/c which made them a bit more foolproof but detracted from the performance.
There is a great deal of information on the internet, mostly American but that doesn't make it invalid. Go Google.

Mike W

[Maxflyer]

Look up G-BSPA on the CAA register. It gives you an address you could try.

[S-Works]

do a search on the AIB and the NTSC sites as well, gives some very interesting reading!

[supert300]

Thanks for that fellas.

[BEagle]

I had one trip in a Q-200.

In addition to the single central joystick which commanded pitch and roll from the forward and rear wing surfaces, it also had a small tail surface. Using this, it was possible to have a variety of pitch attitudes for the same straight and level IAS; I guessed that the trick was to have as much 'up' as 'down' available from the trimmed neutral point. As the control column moves with pitch trim, that wasn't as easy as it sounds! Rather like flying the Gnat in manual, aim to keep the control column 'load free central' at all times!

It had wonderful roll response and attempting to provoke it to stall it in the turn felt like going over cat's eyes on a fast road - a slight jolt but that was all.

Once you get it set up for the cruise, it belts along at a splendid rate of knots and is very comfortable....

But do NOT get it going downhill quickly or you can run out of back stick to recover. Then you'll need to faff about with the tail setting lever and the pitch trim to sort things out.

I didn't know that aeros were prohibited, so did a very comfy barrel roll which felt perfect. Then another!

Back in the circuit you have to set the tail angle so that there's enough back stick available to flare the thing once you slow down on the approach. I was in the RHS, so it was time to balance tail angle and trim to set it up for the approach - which required a fair bit of juggling. Visibility forwards over the nose is poor, rearwards is utterly atrocious. If I had one I'd fit mirrors on the undercarriage spats and a forward looking CCTV. There's no throttle available to the RHS pilot, so I had to call fro RPM values to be set by the other pilot. Landing was straightforward (well, I found it easy, unlike the other guy) and keeping straight with rudder was very easy. But you do need a reasonably long runway.

Overall it was a nice fast aeroplane. But you shouldn't expect to fly it from short runways or do anything more than fast VFR cruising. At which it excels!

PS - It was only after landing it that I discovered that I was technically the commander; the other chap (with zillions of RAF hours) hadn't actually got his PPL at the time!

[cubflyer]

Gary Mckirdy is the guy who is the Quickie expert at Enstone. He did have a Defiant, one built in Cyprus, where it has returned. The one built in the UK still lives down at Shoreham I believe.
Never been in a Quickie, the performance figures look great, but the accident statistics certainly dont. I belive every Quickie that has flown in the UK has had some kind of accident, mostly take-off/landing....

[Skylark4]

Cubflyer,
Thanks for the correction. I had a feeling I was close but not quite right. Steve McCurdie is one of the members of that fine organisation, the Oxford Gliding Club. Sorry Steve and Garry.

Mike W