The company markets several versions of its two certificated designs, the SR20 and the SR22. Eligible for voucher ISBN-13: 978-613-4-93228-8 ISBN-10: 6134932280 EAN: 9786134932288 Book language:īlurb/Shorttext: High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Cirrus Aircraft Corporation is an aircraft manufacturer that was founded in 1984 by Alan and Dale Klapmeier to produce the VK-30 kit aircraft. ↑ National Transportation Safety Board (March 1996).↑ Federal Aviation Administration (2 February 2016)."Former astronaut killed in Cirrus VK30 test crash". "Cirrus Design's Alan and Dale Klapmeier: "Dumb Enough to Start and Smart Enough to Finish "". ↑ Airport Journals Staff (January 2007).
"Cirrus Aircraft Deliveries in 2014 Drive Strongest Performance in Six Years". ↑ Cirrus Aircraft News (February 11, 2015)."Cirrus Design Corporation VK-30 – N33VK". 1 2 3 4 5 6 EAA Aviation Center (n.d.)."The Klapmeier Brothers - Homebuilts to Factory Builts" (PDF). List of pusher aircraft by configuration.See also Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era Maximum speed: 250 mph at sea level (405 km/h).Powerplant: 1 × Continental IO-550-G constant speed, 300hp (223 kW).Florida Air Museum, Lakeland, Florida.EAA AirVenture Museum, Oshkosh, Wisconsin.He was testing the aircraft for stall recovery characteristics at aft center of gravity limits. Overmyer died at age 59 in the crash of an Allison turbine-powered VK-30. On 22 March 1996, retired astronaut Robert F. The company estimated that there were 13 customer VK-30s completed and as of February 2016 six were still registered with the Federal Aviation Administration in the USA. Operational historyĬirrus delivered 40 kits, and built four additional factory prototypes. In 1996 the company announced plans to develop a stronger replacement wing for about 28 VK30s supplied to past customers. Ĭirrus discontinued production of the VK-30 towards the end of 1993. The VK-30 first flew on 11 February 1988 and kit deliveries commenced shortly thereafter. The powerplant was a Continental IO-550-G developing 300 hp (224 kW). It incorporated a mid-engine design, driving a three-bladed pusher propeller behind the tail through an extension shaft. The VK-30 was designed to be a five-seat aircraft from the start, which made it considerably larger than most other amateur-built aircraft of its day. The prototype incorporated some parts from production aircraft, including the nose gear from a Piper Cherokee and the main landing gear from a Lake LA-4.
The aircraft has an all- composite construction, and was designed to achieve natural laminar flow over the fuselage as well as the wing and tail surfaces to provide a very low-drag design-using a NASA NLF(1)-0414F airfoil. Together, in the Klapmeiers' parents' barn in rural Sauk County, Wisconsin, they formed Cirrus Design as the company to produce the VK-30 (VK standing for Viken-Klapmeier). Jeff Viken's wife, Sally, designed the VK-30’s flap system. The VK-30 design was conceived in the early 1980s as a kit plane project by three college students, Jeff Viken and Alan Klapmeier from Wisconsin’s Ripon College, and Alan's brother, Dale Klapmeier, who was attending the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. Thus the lessons of the VK-30 were directly responsible for the design of the Cirrus SR20 and SR22, which have been the best-selling four-to-five-seat fixed wing aircraft in the world for the last 13 consecutive years. Its most important legacy is that the work done on developing and marketing the aircraft convinced the designers that the best way to proceed in the future was with a more conventional layout and with a certified production aircraft.
Īs a kit aircraft the VK-30 is a relatively obscure design with few completed aircraft flying. The Cirrus VK-30 is a single-engine pusher-propeller homebuilt aircraft originally sold as a kit by Cirrus Design (now called Cirrus Aircraft), and was the company's first model.