So a couple day's ago I took a drive to Whitecourt Ab. where the dealer for an aircraft company called Pipistrel is located. They have two demo planes, a tail dragger and trike which I didn't see.  After seeing a flyer about the aircraft in my home airport I decided to look it up, the company is from Slovenia, manufacured and built there in a 100% eco friendly building, powered by wind and geo thermal heat. On the main page it is obvious that this company is into building high performace gliders. But as technology has advanced in the engine world and electronic, the company has branched off to building very efficient light weight aircraft.

Virus SW

The Virus SW is their short wing airplane with either a 80hp or 100hp Rotax 912 engine.  First impressions is that the airplane looks good, it's sleek, like an apple product. It's quite evident their attention to detail is very impressive.  After spending at least 2 hours on their website, I was blown away by their performance numbers. I've flown a few efficient aircraft such as the Diamond eclipse, but this thing beats it by far. Lets talk about the 100hp model. It's cruising speed is 147 knots (274 km/hr), that in itself it extremely fast for such a lightweight aircraft.  But most impresive is it's fuel burn, 18L/hr (5gal/hr). It's not only efficient, it does it on premium car gas, avgas will be a thing of the past if more of these aircraft come to market.  For the people who don't know, avgas has a high concentration of led in it, this is poisonous, and almost all small aircraft in North America still use it.  Back to the airplane. It's design looks almost like a short wing glider with an engine put on the front. Now what can it carry, it has 50L total fuel capacity, on top of this it will carry over 300kg weight, that's two big pilots and about 40kg cargo. The airplane itself has an empty weight of 280kg, so it will carry over double it's weight! If your still not impressed keep reading or head over to Pipistrel.si, or pipistrel.ca and read it for yourself.  Okay so I decided I'd drive to Whitecourt and take it for a demo flight. Jonas, the dealer in Alberta for Pipistrel was very quick in responding and getting me into the plane, just two days after my first phone call with him.  I have to mention now that this is an amateur built aircraft, you can either buy it pre-built from the factory so it's ready to fly out of the box, but with this you cannot certify it for night or IFR flight. If you buy the 200 hour kit, it will ship pretty much as you would get ikea furniture, everything is wrapped up in separate packages, drill holes are marked for you in marker, it's pre-painted, etc.  The kit will in real life will take more around 250-400 hours depending on your skill level and facility. But if your not a builder, pipistrel will have it built in canada for you either in whitecourt or Spring bank airport. 

Demo flight:

I wanted to fly in the tail dragger model as it is what I'd be most interested in, due to it's ability to wear tundra tires for rough runways, also a higher cruise speed with less drag, and more clearance on the prop for landing on river banks etc.  We lined up with the runway, with a solid 10knot crosswind, the power was put to the wall and we were up in just a short 6 or so seconds.  Climb rate was 1300', with almost full fuel, two 160lb people and flight bag in the back, the elevation is 2500' at Whitecourt.  So pretty impressive, after take off we did a 70 degree turn to the left to join the circuit.  We did about 5 circuits doing different maneuvers, most impressive was taking off and flying in ground effect to high speed the pulling up and climbing at over 4000ft'min.  The power this little 100hp engine has on the plane is incredible, you can actually feel the power putting you back into your seat.  This demo plane had two dynon skyview screens and a garmin gps in the center I believe. Stalls came next, stall speed is around 39 knots, that's quite low compared to how fast it can actually cruise.  The airplane is equiped with manual propeller pitch control as well for more power on take off and better cruise performance. Anyways, I could not even tell we were in a stall if it wasn't for looking at the altimeter and stall horn going off.  Recovery was quick and easy.  Once seeing what it could do it was my turn to fly! The maneouverablility is something i'm not used to, 60 degree banks are nothing for this airplane, the yaw is very easy to get used to, not much imput is needed to keep a coordinated turn, and in level flight no imput is needed. This aircraft has (optional) spoilers, or also called airbrakes, which allows the plane to decend at high rates, we were seeing 4000' decent rates while keeping a steady airspeed.  Pretty nice if you need to get down in a hurry.  It can also be equiped with a ballistic parachute system, full autopilot, pretty much anything you would ever need really.  

New engine:

Rotax has just released it's 912 iS 100hp engine, this was the biggest downside with the aircraft before, it had carboretors .  With this new engine, it now even less maintenace, fuel burn is lowered to 15l/hr (3.9g) at the same 147 knot cruise speed. This would take me from Edmonton to Regina in just over 2 hrs with a cost in fuel of no more than $45. Now what do you think? Is that not impressive!

It's a dream machine, and is well suited for aerial photography, the doors can be ordered with large sliding windows, there is no spar so visibility is superior. you can also fly with the door off! The wings are also removable in 10 minutes for storage or transport or even if you have to get repairs done, you can just take the airplane apart.  There are numerous video's of this aircraft doing aerobatics and crazy landings on rocky riverbeds and frozen lakes.  Make sure to come back to my blog for updates in the next couple months as I may just have to order this airplane.