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The building of a Skystar Kitfox Series V Taildragger
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Hello! My name is Andy and Welcome to a Web Page that is dedicated to the building of a Skystar Kitfox Series V Taildragger. I hope to share my building experiences and tips with others. I will also include some of the improvements and modifications I have made to make this great aircraft even better.
One of the reasons I chose the Kitfox is of its versatility. It is strong, lightweight and inexpensive to operate, plus it is one of the few "trailerable or tow-able" aircraft on the market. And it performs very well on 80 horsepower and even better with the available 100+ horsepower certified Contentials, or 0-235 Lycoming engine, or any one of the Subaru based powerplants. One can leave it on wheels for back country scouting or put it on straight floats, amphibious floats(Murphy Aircraft 1500 Amphibious Floats) or skis.
The airframe is 4130 chromoloy steel tube that is pre-welded at the factory. It is lightweight and very strong. The fuselage spar carry-through structure was enlarged recently, which along with the wing spar thickness increase, increased the gross weight for the Series V from 1400 lbs to 1550 lbs. Which, depending on your engine installation, gives the Kitfox a useful load of 700+ lbs!! With my wife along, the total 26 gals of fuel, the max baggage weight of 150 lbs, we still won't be at gross weight! The wing takes advantage of the new adhesive technology, that allows the structural bonding of the plywood ribs to the aluminum tube spars. This gives a strong, but light-weight structure. I was skeptical at first, but the more of the wing I completed, the more I saw just how sturdy this wing is.
The builders manual is very straight forward and easy to understand and read. And if you have questions the builder support is top notch. I have never had a problem getting an answer from one of the technical guys and they will talk to you until you are comfortable about your question. There are several models to chose from depending on your budget. Plus, many builder options that can be added to the base model. The ones I would highly recommend are: adjustable rudder pedals, powder-coating, and the speedster package. There are more and if you have any questions about the airplane, options, how to finance email me. If I can't answer it I'll let you know and give you some places to look.
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Some of the small changes I have made to the Kitfox represent what I want to do with the aircraft. Put it on floats and find a back-country lake, or put on skis and do some back-country cross-country skiing, and a few loops rolls and spins.
Baggage Area Enhancements:
For "fishing and sking" the baggage area isn't large enough to handle some fishing poles(my good fly rod will not fit), so I fabricated a ski/pole tube to fit aft of the baggage compartment. I put a weight limit for the tube, but basically it is a 6" diameter piece of aluminum stove pipe liner cut to a 30" length. I fiberglassed a cap for one end and made a mounting pad for the front where it attachs to the aft baggage area. While we are in the baggage area, I have flown in enough turbulent air that I decided to make fiberglass sides for the baggage compartment. This also gave me an opportunity to increase its volume. I usually "bulk" out of space before I reach the max weight limit, so by judicious use of the lost space around some airframe tubes(keeping well clear of the flapperon controls) I was able to gain alittle more space for "stuffable" items.
These were not hard to do, just time consuming.
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Wheel, Skis or Floats
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