Kitfox Question
 

Dear All,

An opportunity to go flying in a KitFox has come my way and before I "aviate" (not alone I hasten to add, the owner will be driving) I have a question.

The KitFox seems to have a bit of a "reputation" among some people for being a bit tricky to fly, or rather, land. Is this reputation deserved or not?

Any tips, info, guidance greatly appreciated.

Best rgds
BEX

In my opinion largely undeserved, it's a fairly typical short-coupled taildragger that's all.

The reputation (and accident rate, which wasn't a figment of anybody's imagination) in Britain came from it's popularity in the 1980s with first-time homebuilders who'd never flown anything but PA28/C152 variants. So without much training or steeping of taildragger culture, they jumped into them, and routinely scared themselves silly and broke them.

The same type never developed either the reputation or the statistics in the US, where most pilots flying them had graduated from other lightweight taildraggers and had no problem at-all.

Francis Donaldson (PFA's Chief Engineer) advises his builders who haven't much small-taildragger experience before flying a Kitfox to go and get checked out first in a Thruster which is a very twitchy taildragging microlight, on the grounds that after a Thruster TST or T300 the Kitfox is a large, benign-handling machine that'll give them no problems at-all.

G

ISTR that this was also more of an issue with the earlier Mks and that aileron effectiveness was improved with later models but happy to stand corrected.

FD

>In my opinion largely undeserved, it's a fairly typical short-coupled taildragger that's all.

Looks like they also have a nose dragger version :)

http://www.skystar.com/aircraft.htm

Mike

Thanks to all.

I have some tail dragger experience (mostly on the SuperCub) and I look forward to the KitFox and what it will teach me.

Cheers again

rgds BEX