The Questair Venture is a

homebuilt aircraft Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenn ...

manufactured by Questair at

John Bell Williams Airport John Bell Williams Airport is a public use airport in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. It is located in Bolton, Mississippi, three nautical miles (6 km) northeast of the center of Raymond, Mississippi, The airport is owned by ...

Bolton, Mississippi Bolton is a town in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 567 at the 2010 census, down from 629 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area. Geography Bolton is in north-central Hinds Cou ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The aircraft first flew on 1 July 1987.Vandermeullen, Richard: ''2012 Kit Aircraft Buyer's Guide'', Kitplanes, Volume 28, Number 12, December 2011, page 63. Belvoir Publications. ISSN 0891-1851

Development

Questair, Inc. was founded by Ed MacDonough and Jim Griswold in the mid 1980s. The Venture was designed by Griswold, a former chief engineer with

Piper Aircraft Piper Aircraft, Inc. is a manufacturer of general aviation aircraft, located at the Vero Beach Regional Airport in Vero Beach, Florida, United States and owned since 2009 by the Government of Brunei. Throughout much of the mid-to-late 20th cent ...

, and used technology from the

Piper Malibu The Piper M-Class (PA-46; formerly called the Malibu, Malibu Mirage, Malibu Meridian, and Matrix) is a family of American light aircraft manufactured by Piper Aircraft of Vero Beach, Florida. The aircraft are powered by single engines and have ...

, which Griswold also led the design for. The layout of the design was intended to combine a large two-seat side-by-side cabin with rear baggage space in the smallest possible airframe, having a highly streamlined design. Questair Venture

The aircraft is of all-metal construction using pre-formed multi-curvature panels and is supplied as a kit to homebuilders. The Venture has a complex tricycle retractable undercarriage, but the Spirit version has a fixed spatted wheel fairings on the main landing gear, the nose landing gear remaining retractable. The engine is a Continental IO-550-G, designed specifically for the aircraft.

Operational history

The first Venture made its maiden flight on 1 July 1987, and in 1991 it was followed by the Questair Spirit which had an optional third rear seat as well as fixed tricycle undercarriage. Both types have been built from kits by amateur constructors and over 30 had been completed by 2001. In 1991, a Questair Venture set a time-to-climb record for its class of two minutes, thirty-one seconds to reach 3000 meters. The record stood until broken in 1999 by the custom-built

Bohannon B-1 The Bohannon B-1 is a purpose-built aircraft to set new world records in its class for time-to-climb. It is a development of the Van's RV-4. Development Bohannon and Miller built the Miller-Bohannon JM-2 Pushy Galore to set the new time to ...

. In June 1989 the Venture set three FAI speed records for piston aircraft weighing less than 1000 kg: * 331 miles/hour average for four 3-km runs at low altitude (beat by the Nemesis NXT in 2008) * 305 mph for a 100-km circuit * 284 mph for a 1000-km circuit The 100-km and 1000-km records still stand in 2023.

Aircraft on display

EAA AirVenture Museum The EAA Aviation Museum, formerly the EAA AirVenture Museum (or Air Adventure Museum), is a museum dedicated to the preservation and display of historic and experimental aircraft as well as antiques, classics, and warbirds. The museum is lo ...

Oshkosh, Wisconsin Oshkosh () is a city in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the western shore of Lake Winnebago and had a population of 66,816 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List o ...

, second prototype VentureOgden, 2007, p. 561

Specifications (Venture)

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * *

External links