Scaled Composite's Cory Bird Creates A Composite Airplane That
May Be The Most Accurately Built Aircraft Ever Made
By ANN Correspondent Christopher Armstrong
Cory Bird achieved his goal of building an aircraft accurate to
1/1000 of an inch last year. He flew "Symmetry" to the AirVenture
airshow in Oshkosh (WI) where it has become one of the highlights
of the show.
Symmetry's canopy tilts forward. When closed, it fits so tightly
that you wonder how the pilot gets into the plane. Inside you find
a center stick and comfortable but tight seating for two. The
passenger's legs wrap around the pilot's waist and come around just
short of the instrument panel.
On the panel, the traditional round instruments are cleanly laid
out. The plane is set up for daytime VFR use. Bird is a low-time
private pilot with little high performance or taildragger
experience and intends to use Symmetry mostly for pleasure flying.
If he does start using it for longer distance trips, he is
considering building a luggage pod. As you might guess, Symmetry
has very little luggage space.
The controls are all pushrod actuated and the center stick is
very sensitive. You think where you want to go, and without much
movement of the stick Symmetry responds. Bird has been very careful
during the flight testing of this experimental aircraft. He still
waits for perfect days to fly and has widened the flight envelope
slowly. He does not want to break the plane into which he has put
so much time, money and sweat.
Symmetry took approximately 15,000 hours to design and build,
over a total of 14 years. Bird spent $40,000 on materials and
another $20,000 on the overhauled 200-horsepower Lycoming IO-360
that powers the aircraft. He also spent more than all of that
combined on hangar rent and utility bills over the years at his
home airport in the Mojave Desert. If he added a labor charge at
aerospace industry rates, the total cost of the project would be
well over a million dollars.
What kind of performance does all this attention to detail
achieve? Symmetry has a blistering fast top speed of 241 knots. At
cruise power Bird is still able to move along at 210 knots, burning
7 gallons an hour. With 28.5 gallons of fuel all stored in the
fuselage in front of the instrument panel, Symmetry can cover 840
nautical miles in 4 hours.
On approach Bird flies at 100 knots, with 90 knots over the
numbers and touchdown at around 85 knots. The very long 4,800 foot
rollout is the only part of the aircraft's performance that Bird
would like to improve. He hopes to do so by increasing maximum flap
extension angle to 30 degrees. Bird says he will do any
modifications he can to maximize Symmetry's speed and correct flaws
revealed by the flight test program. Once that is accomplished, he
might just take time to achieve Perfect Symmetry once again.