Author: Spencer Gould

2006 Vintage FPV nitro motor glider

/ Spencer Gould

Found some old CD’s from 2006 with FPV footage where I was testing out the Black Widow AV FPV system. This was a good 8 years before FPV became mainstream.

Video playback and recording was on a RCA Lyra from Sharper Image.

This was a small fortune in gear that in less than a decade would be more capable at a fraction of the cost. Interesting to see how far the technology has come. Aircraft is a custom build I call the Florida Condor, 8′ span, .40 Magnum glow motor, Futaba 8UAPS on 72 mhz

Cap 232 – Aircraft of the Month

/ Spencer Gould

The Cap 232 was made common to the American air show circuit by acrobatic pilot Mike Goulian.

This aircraft is also very popular with the RC acrobatic aircraft and is featured as one of the aircraft in Real Flight RC flight Sim.

The aircraft was developed from the Cap 21 (all made in France) and is also used by the French Air Force.

Like the Ultimate 300 there is likely way more RC aircraft of the Cap 232 then the real deal, bunch of videos on YT

The Great Planes Cap 232 (now a defunct company) plans are up on Outerzone if you want to build one

https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=10827

Acapella 100 – Aircraft of the Month

/ Spencer Gould

My Amazon Cloud Photos had photos from this day 8/1 from the Oshkosh 2003 airshow I attended. In the photos was a few detail shots of the Acapella 100 home built aircraft.

Its based of a BD-5 Fuselage but sports a twin boom design and a large O-360 motor

Info is limited on this aircraft however there are a few sites & mentions:

https://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/VanTilborg/10103.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede_BD-5

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1033836

I could find no YouTube videos on the Aircraft.

Last info I can find is its still at the Whitman airport in Wisconsin

A close up of the nicely contoured cowling over the O-360 Motor. Should note the original BD-5 only had a 70 hp engine on average, less than half the power of this one.

OMA SUD Skycar – Aircraft of the Month

/ Spencer Gould

The OMA SUD Skycar was a unique twin engine pusher with a twin boom & hatchback feature made in Italy in the mid 2000’s

Info is limited on this unique aircraft, some reports noted that it was under powered and from what I can tell only the one prototype exist (reg I-SKY)

Some websites with more coverage

OMA SUD Skycar

https://janes.migavia.com/ita/oma-sud/skycar.html

https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/oma-sud-skycar

I was not able to find any RC options, books or models of the skycar.

Europa – Aircraft of the Month

/ Spencer Gould

This aircraft of the month is the Europa a low wing all composite EA-B aircraft that has been around for a few decades now and is offered in a few different versions.

Likely the most interesting is the mono-wheel version that flys reportedly like a normal tail dragger aircraft.

Main company web site: https://www.europa-aircraft.co.uk/

EAA listing: https://www.eaa.org/eaa/aircraft-building/kits-and-plans/d—g/europa

There was even a certified version called the Liberty XL-2 built in Florida but operations ended

The discovery channel aired a series of a Europa being built in the UK by Mark Evans in 2002

The likely re-recorded 22 year old video quality is not quite the best but it’s interesting to watch.

If your really interested a DVD is available on Amazon that may offer higher video quality.

Beyond this there is plenty of newer YouTube videos of the Europa flying.

For those looking for a RC version, outerzone has you covered with a 50″ span version from 1997.

https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=7830