The Glass Goose uses a 68-inch
tapered-blade Warp Drive propeller. |
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canards,
they performed even better on the water and provided lift in the air. Center
of lift is past the 50% point of the sponsons' 5-foot chord, and span is
19 inches. Scott said air flows over the top of the sponsons and onto the
lower wing.
He also added 18 inches
to each upper wingtip, increasing the Seahawk 24-foot span to a 27foot
span.
Building a Prototype
Scott then proceeded to
construct a scratchbuilt Glass Goose in 1994, incorporating all of the
improvements initially tested on the Seahawk.
Construction took a year
and a half. The original plan was to use a 180-hp Subaru engine, but during
ground testing, it never performed as it should, and Scott switched to
a 160-hp Lycoming 0-320B2B engine. Then another problem developed in 1996.
During a test flight program, the airplane developed a flutter that, according
to Scott, was due to an unbalanced flaperon. He was forced to make an emergency
landing in a cow pasture, and the airplane was badly damaged, but Scott
walked away from it
Moving Forward
Scott took the following
year to study the pros and cons of the project as well as to analyze the
accident and come up with a fix. Construction of Glass Goose No. 0002 commenced
in January 1998, and the airplane made its first flight on March 20, 1999,
again powered by a 160-hp Lycoming 0-320-B2B engine turning a fourblade,
68-inch Warp Drive propeller. ''We did a lot of propeller research with
that company before coniing up with a satisfactory combination and
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