Here's a project I've been working on for the last 16 months or so. Just had the first flight on Saturday, and I still have a buzz since it went so well!

A little background if you don't know me. I worked at Horizon until almost 3 years ago, leading the Air Category product development team with David Ribbe. Took some time off after that, did some unsuccessful job hunting, then decided to start my own kit company. This will be my first product, but realistically it's still several months out from the market as I get the production plans in order. Since I'm so far away from having kits available, this isn't really a commercial announcement, it's just an insight into what I'm working on.

I wanted to do a project with fairly broad appeal that wasn't a Cub or a Mustang. I also want to focus on sizes that already have a large install base of engines & electric motors, which to me appears to be 20cc at the smaller size and 60cc at the larger size.

So I started with the DHC-2 Beaver at 1/6.3 scale for 20cc. It works out to a 91.4" span, which qualifies it as a giant scale airplane. 904 sq. in., 12 lbs for this first prototype. E-flite Power 60 400Kv on 6S 5000, but the next will use a DLE-20.

I worked from the original factory blueprints, so it's 100% scale. Development took a bit longer as I was learning Fusion360, my CAD program, while designing the airplane at the same time. Working in 3D is pretty involved, but it lets you guarantee the parts fit properly, especially the plastic and fiberglass parts.

I was pleasantly surprised the first prototype only required 3oz. of lead in the cowl to balance, and that's even debatable. The stall characteristics are so benign it's like a ParkZone plane or an E-flite Apprentice! I still have to explore the cg range.

Looking forward to reading your comments!

20cc DHC-2 Beaver First Flight, First Prototype (8 min 24 sec)

Eli Field, David Eichstedt's Beaver, Flight 2 (3 min 17 sec)

Nice!!

Very nice. Kit or ARF? My wife likes to build and the Beaver is one of her favorite airplanes.

Danny

Glad to see you're back in the game Dave!

Originally Posted by F1 Rocket

Very nice. Kit or ARF? My wife likes to build and the Beaver is one of her favorite airplanes.

Danny

Kit, which is why I went with 3D CAD. Everything just fits together with no re-engineering required.

Originally Posted by David Eichstedt

Kit, which is why I went with 3D CAD. Everything just fits together with no re-engineering required.

Awesome. Consider one sold once available

Danny

I was excited about the H9 carbon cub because it was a good match for a dle 20,
until I flew it.
The excessive wing loading made it really hard to fly and guess the low reviews it received.


Your DHC-B on the other hand looks great and I look forward to future video and conversation.
I am a sucker for anything that fits a DLE 20.. Plus love to build from kit.


Good job!

I'm glad this isn't another turbo Beaver. Round engine is where its at.

Originally Posted by Texastbird

I'm glad this isn't another turbo Beaver. Round engine is where its at.

Amen!

I am assembling H9 GS Beaver (110" WS) and love Beavers....so consider another one sold....it is us kit-yeah man!

Jerry

Here's another video, this time shot by Dr. Michael Selig, who showed up at the field just after my first flight of the day.

The video shows most of flight number 6, and includes some nice slow flight as well as a good touch-and-go between 2:30 and 2:40.

David Eichstedt DHC-2 Beaver Flight No 6 (5 min 39 sec)

Got 7 flights in today, including a flight by Ali Machinchy to gather his comments (he liked it!).

On three consecutive flights, I removed an ounce of lead from the nose and carefully repeated the stall testing. Great news - I don't need to put any weight back! She has a wide cg envelope while still maintaining reasonable stall characteristics. At the current cg, which is about 34% MAC, it still has a gentle stall. Compared to 30%-31%, where I could almost never get a wing to drop, at 34% you will see a wing drop about 30% of the time. Usually it's when holding full up to induce a stall, then continuing to hold as it tries to recover, thus forcing another stall. It's at this second stall where the wing drops, but then it's still benign. She changes heading about 90°, dips gently and recovers back to level in 20' of altitude or so.

I did have a gust tip her up on a wingtip during a rollout toward the end of the day. The stab made contact with the ground, and appears to have suffered a little damage. I'm going to add a little reinforcement there in the form of either a couple small stringers or a second spar. My philosophy is to design to fly, not crash, but she still needs to be able to withstand this level of knocking about to handle real life.

Michael Selig came out again and captured a bunch of video in 4K, so you can look for that soon. I'll post it when he has it processed, a process which takes a lot longer to do in 4K when compared to 1080p.

After checking out the damage, it doesn't look like a new spar or stringer will be needed in the stab. Instead, I thickened-up the root rib so the sheeting has more meat to glue onto. That should do it.

All repaired and ready to fly again!

And here are bits of Ali's flight:

Ali Machinchy Flies David Eichstedt's DHC-2 Beaver in 4K (4 min 20 sec)

Originally Posted by Texastbird

I'm glad this isn't another turbo Beaver. Round engine is where its at.

I wonder how it would perform with the Saito 19cc
3 cyl radial?