The second generation of Pipistrel‘s Virus SW is now in production at the company’s headquarters in Slovenia.
The LSA won NASA’s Centennial Personal Air Vehicle challenge in 2007 and the NASA General Aviation Technology Challenge in 2008, boasting higher speed, range and climb rate than other challengers, along with lower cabin noise, lower empty weight and shorter takeoff distances.
The two-place, Kevlar-reinforced composite high-wing is powered by a Rotax 912. Company officials say more than 30 orders have been placed from individuals and flight schools since winning the NASA challenge.
For more information: Pipistrel.si.
You mooney guy. Descent Mooney for 80000 Euros? Are you insane, they sell for 500000 USD (Even used ones don’t get bellow 100000 USD) and they DO cruise fast, 240 Kts for Acclaim type S (no questions there).
But they also use 20 Gallons of AVGAS per hour! More then Virus total fuel, which is btw way cheaper motor gasoline and it takes you 1000 NM on non long range tanks.
I wouldn’t be driving Virus SW into icing, but then I wouldn’t drive Mooney also. You meed to have PT6 at least, or something whining.
Those sleek glider with 20m wingspan also look they will crack any minute. But in reality composite have nearly endless timeframe, never seen a broken wing on Virus. And if all goes wrong there is a parachute. Does mooney have one?
And check youtube video of landing and to distances for Virus airplanes. Less then 600 ft.
Angus, it sounds as if Zephro is running the public-relations dept. of Mooney!
GO THE VIRUS SW!
Pipistrel is selling motorgliders. Mooneys and Cirruses are not motorgliders. Compare the Pipistrel aircraft to other motorgliders instead of something completely different.
I suspect that you, Mister Zephro of Mooneyland, are not a sailplane pilot or motorglider pilot. You’re probably out of your element here in your comments about your comfort with a class of machine that is very different than your usual. Perhaps you should try out soaring and motorgliders. They’re very different than Mooneys and the rest of the usual tin-can stinkpots, that is, most powered aircraft. While you’d have to learn something new and different, you might actually like it…
This is a cute enough air-craft for some fun flying and touring, but in all the years I have been a pilot and under near every circumstances, some of thoses circumstances would dictate to me that I’d rather see an aircraft tail a bit more beefy looking in construction. It seems rather thin in whatever material they used to construct. If for nothing else if I were to fly my family in this plane, that it has the “impression” that it is not stout enough to withstand EVERYTHING that nature has to offer. That is why I have been and continue to be a fan of the Mooney airframe and the near fool-proof way it is put together. The cost of this cutie here would more than pay for a really descent Mooney, but cut that cost in more than half; you’d find yourself in a well vintaged Mooney, but I would feel more comfortable flying a mid sixties Mooney than an airplane that makes me wonder how it would hold together in a thunderstorm in which I’ve been there and done that, yet still here……
Right now in this time; in order to sell a plane, it has to be cheap. Where does the price of cheap intersect with the eventuality of an airframe that is designed to be built cheap? At some point I think that “cheap” will be the most expensive expenditure in safety, and then they will say that they have learned a lesson……
Definately fly, but fly approved airframes that have been tested in the most riggerous of conditions and the Mooney certainly withtout doubt can pass that test over and over. One of the most threatening competitor of the Mooney is the Cirrus airframe. A simple check with the NTSB site will show that those are the least statisticaly safe aircraft in their class and the Mooney the opposite.
I dunno, maybe the Pipistrel will prove to be a safe airframe (more power to them), but to me, I not only want to be safe, but I want to feel safe and this bird doesn’t do it for me.
richard zephro
http://www.mooneyland.com