LondonMike wrote:
this is more like a Lotus Elise than an F1 car.
I don’t know. You can use an Elise to go shopping and there is even a seat next to yours where you can place the groceries on the way home. This thing here needs to be trailered to Reno where it performs it’s two timed passes and then it needs to be put back on it’s trailer for the trip home. Rather like a Formula 1 car… And I doubt that under that narrow cowling the engine will get enough cooling for more than a couple of minutes under full power.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
I can’t help regretting such talent and effort and budget being spent at what is essentially ego-tripping, rather than produce something useful to the community
I wonder if you watched to the end of that video? He speaks in quite some detail about the parts of the aircraft which were compromised from a straight speed point of view in order to make it more functional and to not compromise the low speed and ground handling. It seems to me that, if we insist on stretching the analogy with sports cars, this is more like a Lotus Elise than an F1 car.
Jeez! I have known about Mike Arnold and his AR5 for quite a long time and I think it’s a very impressive, lovely little machine and the man’s empirical understanding of the business of designing an efficient flying machine is entirely laudable.
What’s the point of it? It satisfied Mike Arnold and It’s great. So it doesn’t have 4 seats, travel 1200 miles IFR on a fill of gas but who cares. Single seats are not for everyone but neither are 4 seat transports.
The AR-6 is a neighbour of mine at Hayward owned and flown by Steve Senegal.
You might recall the excitement it caused at Reno this year at the start of the Sunday Formula 1 race:
Fortunately no injuries worse than bruised knuckles, but quite a bit of repair work ahead!
I worry that designs like this might be too exciting to be my idea of fun. But what’s not to admire?!
Amazing aircraft. I wonder how fast it could go with a 100 hp Hirth in the nose
BTW, I forgot to mention that the comparison to Formula 1 cars sure made me smile… Based on my father’s costs ($8K IIRC) to build a similar aircraft in roughly the same time frame, I’d estimate $10K or less was spent to build the AR-5. The 65 HP Rotax would have been more expensive than the VW my father used. That might be a too high estimate.
What will $10K buy in Formula 1? One brake pad? 
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
You’ll please excuse me for having learned to fly (and to tinker) in an environment where fun is indeed the prime goal; but then everybody’s fun, not only my very personal single own.
I think the environment might have been Dean Wilson designing a kitplane that he intended to market, to make money, then Dan Denney deciding he could do it better and make a living by ‘borrowing’ the design, then somebody in Slovakia ‘borrowing’ both the design and Denny’s aircraft name to service their market. I’m sure that was a lot of innocent, carefree fun 
Somebody pursing their childhood dreams, designing and building one-off planes with their own money, then successfully winning prizes with no financial reward, is as close to innocent fun as I know how to describe.
Silvaire wrote:
…but I think FUN is a very worthy objective when spending my time and money.
Maybe. But your fun and the fun of this aircraft builder is not necessarily my fun. Therefore I claim the right to be unimpressed by his feat.
Silvaire wrote:
FUN is a very worthy objective when spending my time and money..
Agree to that. Totally. You’ll please excuse me for having learned to fly (and to tinker) in an environment where fun is indeed the prime goal; but then everybody’s fun, not only my very personal single own. Still, again and again and yet again: to each their own, live and let live, fly and let fly,
