With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

new blood

2007 January 31 09:43

There was a huge upsurge in homebuilt aircraft designs in the early 1980s, partially driven by the designs of Burt Rutan. I'm not sure if it's an illusion, but it seems to me like new designs have been relatively stagnant since then. I've talked here before about about the Hummel Bird, but that design is 30 years old or so.

Bruce King lives just east of San Antonio, and having built a Hummel Bird, has the same thoughts about it as I do, that it's kind of small for a late 20th century person. So Bruce built an aircraft more suited to his frame, that he calls a "BK1". Having built that prototype, he's now planning to sell plans for the airplane and he's currently building a second prototype to work the bugs out of the plans.

Bruce's web site is pretty comprehensive. He has trip reports about flying his planes to Oshkosh and Sun-and-Fun. I actually have photos of the BK1 from my trip to Oshkosh in 2005. His BK1 appeared in the January 2007 issue of Air & Space magazine.

I can't find it now, but I thought he said that he is planning to start marketing the plans at Oshkosh 2007. Even if he doesn't I will be keeping a close eye on this one.