Lightning Bug

[First time Juke]

Bere is a built job going on !

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Lightning_Bug/?yguid=287402211

What is the history of that aeroplane ? Is it related to the White Lightning ?

Nick Jones seems to be the designer in both !

http://www.studiomoonart.com/whitelightning.htm

[shorebird]

Re: Lightning Bug

Yes, It's a Nick Jones design and he knows how to design fast airplanes. The Bug was designed to be powered by an inline 3 cyl, 100 hp, liquid cooled, snowmobile engine. It had very impressive numbers and was possibly faster than even the fastest F1's today. It had about 40 sq/ft of wing w/small flaps.
One day a young FO who had just completed building a Bug asked me while enroute to Hawaii what I thought of the design. He was preparing for his first flight in the thing and wanted my opinion. I told him to donate it to a museum and never fly it and if he did, it might be the most dangerous thing he'll ever do. I told him that it would be very sensitive in all axis and that the engine would likely overheat. He flew it the following week nearly killing himself. The engine overheated immediately and was so sensitive in pitch he almost lost it trying to get it back on the ground. He took it apart, sold it to a guy back east who crashed it.
There's probably nothing wrong with the airframe other than being touchy but you can't have a combination of high wing loading, high landing speeds with a snowmobile engine for power.