I'm new from scrath

Hey TommyBoy,

"Can I build a Q-2 (or Q-200) from scratch?"

That is the most frequently asked question I get here through www.quickheads.com and I always give the same response. Basically it depends on how resourceful you are, and how confident you are in your ability to fabricate components that are no longer manufactured?

Here is some background: The Q-2 and Q-200 were kits that were manufactured and distributed by Quickie Aircraft Corporation throughout the early to mid 1980's. Because of several factors they went out of business in 1986 and declared bankruptcy.

The plans that they provided, and the plans that are available for sale on this site, were to build the Q-2 from one of their kits. Therefore, the plans are missing some information about how to fabricate several major parts that were supplied by QAC.

For now, I think it would probably be a wise idea to try and find a partially or fully completed kit at this point. Building from scratch would be a little tricky right now because of the premolded fuselage shells, carbon fiber spars for the Q-200 and metal parts that aren't documented in the plans.

That being said, there are people who have built from scratch. You'd need to be pretty ingenious though, and I can't say whether or not they were successfully flown or not. (See the links page of my site.)

Q-2's and Q-200's show up on eBay, barnstormers, and craigslist every few months in various stages of completion so that might be a good place to start looking.

www.quickheads.com is really set-up so far to help people who already have a kit, but I am trying to document all of the metal pieces as I remove them from my plane so that hopefully scratch building would be easier at some point.

As far as plans and templates on my site go:

The Q-2 and Q-200 plans that I have for sale are provided together as one package. This is due to the fact that the Q-200 plans were sent out as an addendum to the Q-2 plans.

The templates are different. The Q-2 Large Appendix Sheets contain all of the bulkhead and main wing templates, but they have the GU Airfoil templates for the canard. The GU canard was prone to lose lift with bug or rain contamination, but that was resolved with the addition of vortex generators. The GU canard doesn't have a CF spar and can be built completely with hand layups.

The Q-200 templates contain all of the bulkhead and main wing templates above, but the Canard templates have been replaced with the updated LS1-mod airfoil. The New canard corrected the bug contamination issue, but it is thinner and requires the Carbon Fiber spar to handle the landing loads. A guy in Australia (Peter Harris) can make these again on a mandrel for you, but there can be a waiting period.

So basically, how you proceed is up to you. There are obviously some issues to consider. Please let me know if this answers your questions, and if I can be of any further assistance.

I appreciate you asking this question here in the forum so that others might weigh-in and benefit from the discussion.

I appreciate your time and hope this finds you well.

Warm regards,
Dan Yager
www.quickheads.com