Pietenpol Air Camper

This popular design took to the air for the first time on May 29, 1929, from the rural Minnesota town of Cherry Grove. The brainchild of Bernard Harold Pietenpol, a self -taught mechanic and experimenter. It is a high wing two seat tandem open cockpit monoplane.

The do-it-yourself craze was just getting started as a Depression-born phenomenon when the Air Camper replaced the earlier primary glider as aviation’s favorite backyard building project. It was in 1930 that Modern Mechanics magazine featured the Ford Model A engine as the perfect powerplant for the little homebuilt. The two-seater open-cockpit monoplane is said to land like a Luscombe and handle like a J-3 Cub. In the late 1990s the two-seat Air Camper and single-seat Sky Scout designs are very much alive, with numerous examples still flying. Modern Air Campers are powered by Corvair, Lycom-ing or Continental engines.

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Ultralight Replica:
RagWing RW1 Ultra-Piet

Engine: Ford Model A, 40 hp
HP range: 40-125
Height: 6.5 ft
Length: 17.8 ft
Wing span: 29.5 ft
Wing area: 147.5 sq.ft
Weight empty: 620 lb
Gross: 1020 lb
Fuel cap: 18 USG
VNE: 90 kt / 104 mph / 167 kmh
Speed max: 90 mph
Cruise: 75 mph
Stall: 40 mph
ROC: 500 fpm
Take-off dist: 400 ft
Landing dist: 300 ft
Seats: 2
Landing gear: tail wheel