Scudrunners

I was listening to terminal this morning and the controller asked, "What was your type again? I keep missing it." The pilot replied, "Uh, it's a game bird GB-1. First one in Canada."

The controller said "That's probably why I have not heard of it. We have someone up here with a google window open." Then another pilot said, "I'm going to have to google that plane too."

Then I googled it. Now I'm here wondering if you guys are farmiliar?

https://gamecomposites.com/gb1/

Never heard of it. Sharp looking little thing, though.

An expensive attempt to try and beat a pitts?

Looks marvellous! However I think I can count on the number of fingers
on one hand, the number of pilots in Canada that are limited by a Pitts
that costs perhaps 5% of the new price for that.

Kudos to you, if you are one of them.

If you gotta have a monoplane, a used Extra might get you 95% of the
way there for 1/4 the price.

I bet the guy flying it was Neil Harris https://www.facebook.com/neilharrisaerosports/



He’s one of the guys I spoke with trying to track a S2 down for some dual time before I picked up the Pitts. Gave me some leads but no dice so just went and gaver.

Actually, if you have sufficient time in other types, you don't need
a Pitts checkout.

Mike Potter taught me that.

However, not many pilots in Canada fly as many interesting types as
Mike has.

Hey, whatever happened to Sukhois? They used to be the flavor of
the month for Unlimited.

I know they stopped making the SU26 for the 31. I did read that most preferred the 26 though.
( do I need to say ive never flown either)

can't find anywhere that you can still buy new from the factory either....

Now I do know a Yak 55 thats been trying to get approved for flying in Canada since I think November.

That Game Bird is quite a bit bigger thanI was expecting, either that or this Neil guy is a very small man.

Hey Colonel, why would it be so big? Something about taking advantage of specific Reynolds numbers?

What you want with an aerobatic airplane is an awesome power to weight
ratio for good vertical, so you have to keep it light. That goes against
making it too big.

But, you want an awesome roll rate and incredible pitch and yaw authority
even at very slow speeds, so that means that you want extremely large
control surfaces with good moment arms.

If you look at these airplanes, they have ridiculously large ailerons, rudders
and elevators. It's all about how far out you want to locate them.

Minimizing induced drag at high alpha is nice. Being able to store energy
at high speed - minimizing drag - is nice, but keep in mind the profile of
the wing. Sukhoi used a really fat wing for high lift. Also made it easy to
make it strong. Spar was immense.

You don't need a thin, NLF wing with low drag. Hard to keep a fast airplane
in the box. A guy called Snort flew at the WAC in Texas a few years back in
an F-14. I wasn't there, but I'm told it was hilarious.



He's a lot of fun. You'd like him. It's a good thing he's USN, TC would cut
his balls off if he was Canadian.