The V-STOL Solution is an American ultralight aircraft that was designed by Dick Turner in 1998 and produced by V-STOL Aircraft. The aircraft was supplied as a kit for amateur construction.Cliche, Andre: ''Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide'' 8th Edition, page E-37 Cybair Limited Publishing, 2001.

Design and development

The design goal of the Solution was to produce a legal US

FAR 103 Ultralight Vehicles Ultralight aircraft in the United States are much smaller and lighter than ultralight aircraft as defined by all other countries. In the United States, ultralights are described as "ultralight vehicles" and not as aircraft. They are not req ...

regulations compliant single seat ultralight that could be easily converted to a two-seater with the addition of a second seat and a larger engine. FAR Part 103 specifies a maximum empty weight of and the Solution has a standard empty weight of . It features a cable-braced

high-wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing co ...

, a single-seat, open cockpit,

conventional landing gear Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...

and a single engine in pusher configuration. The aircraft is made from bolted-together

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

tubing, with the flying surfaces covered in

Dacron Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foo ...

sailcloth. Its span wing has a wing area of , which is large enough to support a second person. The second seat would be installed behind the first, in

tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

, and could be optionally equipped with dual controls. The pilot is accommodated on an open seat and has conventional three-axis controls in the form of a

centre stick A centre stick (or center stick in the United States), or simply control stick is an aircraft cockpit arrangement where the control column (or joystick) is located in the center of the cockpit between the pilots or between the pilot's legs. Sinc ...

and rudder pedals. The standard engine provided for single seat flying was the single cylinder

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of ...

Rotax 277 The Rotax 277 is a , single-cylinder, two-stroke aircraft engine, that was built by BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co. KG of Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Euro ...

of , while larger engines could be installed for two-seat operations. V-STOL Aircraft had the design on the market for only a short period before the company went out of business. Assembly time from the kit is estimated at 50 hours.

Specifications (Solution single-seat)

References

{{V-STOL Aircraft

Solution Solution may refer to: * Solution (chemistry), a mixture where one substance is dissolved in another * Solution (equation), in mathematics ** Numerical solution, in numerical analysis, approximate solutions within specified error bounds * Soluti ...

1990s United States ultralight aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Single-engined pusher aircraft