The Quikkit Glass Goose is an American two-seat

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

amphibious aircraft An amphibious aircraft or amphibian is an aircraft (typically fixed-wing) that can take off and land on both solid ground and water, though amphibious helicopters do exist as well. Fixed-wing amphibious aircraft are seaplanes ( flying boat ...

, designed by Tom Scott and marketed for homebuilding by

Quikkit Quikkit was a manufacturer of kitplanes located in Dallas, Texas. The firm was founded in 1992 by Tom Scott to market the Glass Goose amphibious aircraft, a substantially revised version of the Aero Composites Sea Hawker The Quikkit Glass Goo ...

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County wi ...

.. The Glass Goose is based on the earlier Sea Hawker, which was designed by Garry LeGare in 1982 and sold through his firm

Aero Gare Aero Gare was a kitplane manufacturer founded by Gary LeGare in Mojave, California to marketed the Sea Hawker amphibious aircraft. It sold all rights to the design to Aero Composites in 1986 The year 1986 was designated as the Internatio ...

as the Sea Hawk and, later, Sea Hawker. LeGare sold the rights to the aircraft to Aero Composites in 1986, which sold them again two years later to (unrelated) Aero Composite Technologies..Tacke, Willi; Marino Boric; et al: ''World Directory of Light Aviation 2015–16'', p. 121. Flying Pages Europe SARL, 2015.

Design and development

Tom Scott purchased a Sea Hawker kit in October 1984 and completed the aircraft in March 1986, constructing the aircraft according to the plans. He was not happy with the resulting aircraft and over five years incorporated improvements to address performance and stability shortcomings. The final design has more wing area, a larger hull surface and improved pylon aerodynamics, plus many other improvements. This redesign became the Glass Goose kit. The Glass Goose features a cantilever biplane layout, without

interplane strut In aeronautics, bracing comprises additional structural members which stiffen the functional airframe to give it rigidity and strength under load. Bracing may be applied both internally and externally, and may take the form of strut, which act in ...

s, a two-seats-in-

side-by-side configuration 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 ...

enclosed cockpit under a

bubble canopy A bubble canopy is an aircraft canopy constructed without bracing, for the purpose of providing a wider unobstructed field of view to the pilot, often providing 360° all-round visibility. The designs of bubble canopies can drastically vary; s ...

, retractable

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle ...

and a single engine in

pusher configuration In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in no ...

. The aircraft is made from composites. Its span wing has an area of . Standard engines used are Lycomings, although the eight-cylinder

Jabiru 5100 The Jabiru 5100 is a lightweight four-stroke horizontally opposed flat-eight air-cooled aircraft engine, manufactured by Jabiru Aircraft. Design and development The engine is direct-drive and is fitted with alternators, silencers, vacuum pump ...

and

Mazda , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima (town), Fuchū, Hiroshima Prefecture, Hiroshima, Japan. In 2015, M ...

Wankel engine The Wankel engine (, ) is a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into rotating motion. It was invented by German engineer Felix Wankel, and designed by German engineer Hanns-Dieter Paschke. ...

s have also been employed.

Specifications (Glass Goose)

References

External links

{{commons category, Quikkit Glass Goose
Official website archives
on

Archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...

Single-engined pusher aircraft 1980s United States civil utility aircraft Flying boats Amphibious aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Glass Goose Biplanes