The Nemesis originated as an attempt by Jon Sharp to build a Shoestring racer, with composite skins over a steel frame. Along the way, Dan Bond convinced him to use an airfoil with extensive laminar flow and finally, Steve Ericson helped Jon design a sleeker, all composite airframe. All that remains of the original “plastic Shoestring” is the horizontal tail. The steel space frame was sold to Dan Gilbert and became the guts of his Shadow Formula One air racer. Although Shadow looks much like Nemesis it is fabricated differently and has a completely different wing.
The Formula One racing Sharp DR 90 Nemesis was built at the Mojave Airport by the Nemesis Air Racing Team. The aircraft is powered by a modified Continental O-200 piston engine.
Between 1991 and 1999, the plane won 45 of the 48 race events in which it was entered, including nine consecutive Reno Gold National Championships. During each of the race seasons from 1994 through 1999, Nemesis finished as the International Formula One points champion. Nemesis was awarded the George Owl Trophy for its design in 1991, three Louis Blèriot Medals from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (1993, 1996 and 1998), and four Pulitzer Trophies (1993, 1994, 1995 and 1999). The aircraft set 16 world speed records, and in one of those records, Nemesis was clocked at over 290 mph (467 km/h). Because of its successes, the National Air and Space Museum has described the plane as “the most successful aircraft in air racing history”.
After the end of the 1999 racing season, Jon Sharp donated the aircraft to the National Air and Space Museum and it is now on display at the NASM’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
The success of the aircraft led Jon Sharp to design a follow-on type, the Nemesis NXT.
Variant: Rolls-Royce ACCEL
Engine: 1 × Continental O-200, 100 hp Wingspan: 20 ft 6 in (6.25 m) Wing area: 66 ft2 (6.13 m2) Length: 18 ft 6 in (5.64 m) Height: 3 ft 4 in (1.02 m) Empty weight: 520 lb (236 kg) Loaded weight: 770 lb (350 kg) Fuel capacity: 5 US gal (18.9 liters) Maximum speed: 292 mph (470km/h) Stall speed: 90 Kias (167 km/h) Crew: 1 G-Loading limits: +6, -4 Cabin height: 35 in (89 cm)
Designed and built by Errol Spencer Shapley at Torquay, Devon, the Kittiwake was a two-seat monoplane with a gull wing and a fixed landing gear. The first aircraft, a Mark 1 registered G-AEZN (c/n ESS.1), with an open cockpit was powered by a 50 hp (37 kW) Continental A50 piston engine and first flown at Roborough in 1937. A Captain F Symodson was the test pilot. The second aircraft, a Mark 2 registered G-AFRP (c/n ESS.2), was a cabin monoplane powered by a 90 hp (67 kW) Pobjoy Niagara III engine and first flown at Roborough in 1938.
The Mark 1 aircraft was dismantled before the Second World War. The Mark 2 was stored during the war only to crash on Dartmoor in December 1946.
Kittiwake Mark 2 Engine: 1 × Pobjoy Niagara III, 90 hp (67 kW) Wingspan: 32 ft 0 in (9.76 m) Length: 20 ft 10 in (6.35 m) Empty weight: 901 lb (409 kg) Gross weight: 1600 lb (726 kg) Cruise speed: 110 mph (176 km/h) Crew: 1 Capacity: 1
The 1948 Shannon-Buente Special N5489N was built by James Shannon & Ben E Buente as a Midget racer. A single place cabin, mid-wing monoplane, it reportedly never raced.
The SGP M-222 Flamingo was an Austrian twin engine, four seat light aircraft, developed with a series of prototypes into the early 1960s. There was no series production.
In the 1950s Simmering-Graz-Pauker A.G. (SGP) was a large manufacturing concern but the M-222 Flamingo was their first aircraft. Designed by Erich Meindl, it was a conventional twin engine monoplane, smaller than many but seating four in two rows.
The wings of the Flamingo had a laminar flow airfoil and were made entirely of wood. The first prototype was powered by 150 hp (112 kW) Lycoming O-320 flat-four engines but later aircraft had 200 hp (150 kW) Lycoming IO-360 flat-fours. These were conventionally mounted ahead of the leading edge in long cowlings with their propeller shafts, driving two-blade airscrews, centred above the wing upper surface. There were fuel tanks in the thin wings, with more fuel in wing tip tanks.
The Flamingo was fitted with both flaps and airbrakes. The flaps were of the camber changing type, to increase lift at low speed; they were split into three sections on each wing and slid rearwards and downwards on concealed rails. The airbrakes were wing mounted spoilers for losing speed. Like the wings the empennage was all-wood; the cantilever tailplane was set low on the fuselage.
The Flamingo’s fuselage had a welded steel tube structure, skinned forward with light alloy and aft with laminated plastic. Its two rows of seats were enclosed under a three part canopy which merged at the rear into the raised fuselage. There was a wide door on either side for cabin access and a separate baggage space behind the seats. It had a retractable tricycle undercarriage with the mainwheels, fitted with brakes, behind the engines. The nosewheel was steerable. The undercarriage, like the flaps and airbrakes, were hydraulically powered. The M.222 was aerobatic when carrying a pilot and one passenger.
The first prototype M.222V1, registered OE-VEA c/n 1, flew for the first time on 15 May 1959 but was lost in a crash during single engine tests on 2 August 1959, the pilot Eduard Stefl and flight engineer Leopold Schwingenschlögl were killed instantly. Development work in the Rax-Werke in Wiener Neustadt continued on a second aircraft, OE-VEB, which first flew in 1960 and a third M.222V3 c/n 3, followed in 1962. The fourth aircraft, now renamed the Simmering-Graz-Pauker SGP.222 was intended as a production prototype and demonstrator and appeared at the 1964 Hamburg show, though it turned out to be the last of the line. It incorporated several changes in response to the lengthy development trials. The wing leading edges had breaker strips added and there were new fillets in this edge at the root and on the outboard side of the engine cowlings. The ailerons were mass balanced and fitted with ground adjustable trim tabs, and the upper hinge gaps sealed with fabric. The most obvious external changes were to the empennage where the horizontal tail now had positive dihedral and the previously rounded vertical tail had been enlarged and given severe straight taper, assisted by a ventral fin to improve low speed handling. Both elevators and the rudder had trim tabs. One independent report of this fourth aircraft’s handling found it well behaved, stable but responsive with a docile stall and brisk climb.
The type was redesigned by the glider designer Ruediger Kunz, in order to build the machine in compliance to USA regulations, and hence the fourth prototype was designated SGP.222VS (VS for Vereinigte Staaten, German for United States) briefly used but this was later changed to SGP.222A. Initially registered OE-VED, the aircraft was reregistered OE-FEC after it received its Austrian and FAA Type Certificates on respectively February 15 and March 3, 1964, where after it was also redesignated SGP.222A. However, at the end of 1964 the program was cancelled and the prototypes were scrapped.
Second prototype Powerplant: 2 x Lycoming IO-360, 150 kW (200 hp) Propellers: 2-bladed Length: 8.80 m (28 ft 10 in) Wingspan: 11.90 m (39 ft 1 in) Height: 3.05 m (10 ft 0 in) Wing area: 18.38 sq.m (197.8 sq ft) Aspect ratio: 7.68 Empty weight: 1,250 kg (2,756 lb) equipped Max takeoff weight: 1,900 kg (4,189 lb) Fuel capacity: 380 L (100.4 US gal, 83.6 Imp gal) Maximum speed: 330 km/h (205 mph; 178 kn) at sea level Cruising speed: 280 km/h (174 mph; 151 kn) economical, 65% power Range: 1,650 km (1,025 mi; 891 nmi) Service ceiling: 6,100 m (20,013 ft) service Rate of climb: 7.5 m/s (1,480 ft/min) at sea level Wing loading: 103 kg/m2 (21 lb/sq ft) Power/mass: 160 W/kg (0.096 hp/lb) Landing speed: 105 km/h (65 mph; 57 kn) Landing run: 135 m (443 ft) using brakes Take-off run: 300 m (985 ft) to 15 m (50 ft) Crew: One Capacity: Three passengers
First seen in 1997 at the Bassano show, the Seastorm is aimed at the American kit plane market. Entirely composite, a 900kg MAUW four seater was under development.
Engine: Midwest 110, 115 hp Wing span: 9.27 m Wing area: 12.24 sq.m MAUW: 500 kg Empty weight: 300 kg Fuel capacity: 120 lt Max speed: 270 kph Cruise speed: 210-240 kph Minimum speed: 62-73 kph Climb rate: 4.5 m/s Seats: 2 Fuel consumption: 18-32 lt/hr Price (1998): $89,000 Kit price (1998): $45,000
Engine: Midwest 105, 105 hp HP range: 105-115 Top speed: 171 mph Cruise: 148 mph Stall: 44 mph Range: 1040 sm ROC: 1200 fpm TO dist land/water: 400 ft / 820 ft Ldg dist land/water: 425 ft / 620 ft Service ceiling: 13,700 ft Fuel cap: 26.5 USG Empty wt: 682 lb Gross wt: 1340 lb Height: 6 ft Length: 24.6 ft Wing span: 30 ft Wing area: 131 sq.ft Seats: 2 Undercarriage: tail
All Aero 