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QuickTalk 1 - COMPOSITE NEWS

***Super Quickie Scores***

The Amsoil Racer, a Burt Rutan design strongly resembling a Quickie, has placed very well in at least two air races recently - Reno and Texas Air Race in San Marcos. The highly modified design looks like a single-place Quickie with a horizontal T-tail for better control in steep turns and removable single struts connecting the canard and main wing on each side.

The ship has proven to have excellent flying qualities at its 240 mph racing speed in the biplane category. Anyone who saw ABC's Wide World of Sports coverage of the Reno race will agree that the Amsoil Racer is a hot performer. It was leading the race near the end before two pylon cuts penalized it to 3rd place.

The Racer, powered by a 160-hp Lycoming engine and sporting some previously unflown airfoils, has shown dramatically that plenty of potential still exists in the Quickie-type design (see Air Progress, Jan. 1982 for picture).

***P.A.T.-1 Program Ended?***

(From Aviation Consumer, Jan. 15) Despite the tragic loss of the composite canard PAT-1 and its chief designer in a fatal crash in November, there is a chance that the project will be carried on. According to Lea Griswold, the partner who with the late Howard "Pug" Piper launched the aircraft design effort, the general response to the PAT-1 was so enthusiastic that he is inclined to regroup and push on once again.

Mead was an outstanding designer who had worked with Rutan at one time and had a successful design, the Adventure, to his credit. Some fear that Mead perished with much of the design specifics on the sole prototype still uncommitted to paper.

As for the possible future difficulties of mass producing a foam and fiberglass aircraft like the PAT-1 economically, researching the matter was a prime order of business of the cross-country trip that ended with the fatal crash.



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