Sirocco Light Aircraft

Modifications or changes

2011-12-14T02:24:00.000+01:00

Hi guys,

Just a note about adding some extra engines to your Sirocco!
As you all well know, conducting extensive modifications or changes to any design without consultation of the “the manufacturer” may have allowed you to compromise the structural integrity of the original aircraft design. Please pay extra attention to these unauthorized modifications as a crash of a Sirocco (jet-powered or not...) would not only hurt my little company's reputation but also have an effect on all other SSDR (UK) pilots which fly with aircraft as they are only to be designed and tested by their respective manufacturers.

Fly for Fun, Fly Safe!

Evert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je2DDkRuQZ0&feature=plcp&context=C237b8UDOEgsToPDskJPH5pTg12Vfc_pHjNomuBo

Youtube

2011-02-10T23:03:00.002+01:00

Hi Guys,

If interested in the Aviasud history (original manufacturer of the Sirocco in the 80's) these links are worth looking at;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWAMzFNBfg

and

http://www.lesvieuxdebs.fr/fr/information/34184/l-aventure-aviasud

Unfortunately its in the French language... but still very nice!

Fly for fun,

Evert

Great show at Birmingham!

2009-12-06T02:33:00.004+01:00

The Flying Show in Birmingham was great fun! I would like to thank all those friendly people who showed interest in the Sirocco. If we did not write down your contact details, drop us an e-mail so we could invite you to come over to Little Snoring to see the Sirocco fly soon!

I've flown the Sherwood Ranger!

2009-11-09T22:22:00.008+01:00

Its has been my first biplane experience! After I flown it last week I knew..... I want to have one! A Sherwood Ranger. How do I tell my wife? ("not" is not an option she has a radar for those things) The nice thing about the airplane is that it is an affordable fun machine.. which is fun to fly and... it has folding wings! I have seen it being build during my visits at TLAC (the kit manufacturer). And of course you may have seen it hanging on the ceiling at the last Aero show in Friedrichshafen.

It can be build as a MLA (Microlight aircraft) with a Rotax engine... or if you like more performance.. you can build it as an experimental with a larger engine like the Jabiru or BMW.

First Sirocco kit for the UK

2009-11-09T22:00:00.003+01:00

The first Sirocco kit has been shipped to TLAC in the UK! It can be seen at The Flying Show Birmingham at the end of this month!

A soon as it arrived we started building the kit! We will keep you updated on the progress.

2009-09-06T19:32:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,

The first "routed" parts are there! Paul Hendry-Smith from the UK made them for us on a CNC milling machine. The first Sirocco has been waiting on these.... assembly can start now also all composite parts are made.

Fly for fun!

Evert

New light weight fuselage

2009-07-21T12:37:00.005+02:00

Dear Friends, I am happy to show you the following pictures of the Carbon (with some Kevlar reinforcements) fuselage.. its the first "light weight" we made.. the weight is 20 kg.. this is without gear and other items.. the whole Sirocco-light will stay below 115kg emptyweight for the SSDR class in the UK. Before closing the moulds..

New stick assembly...

2009-06-13T09:07:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,

Just a little note to let you know the flying video is online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKJ_3JbP43g

Fly for Fun,

Evert

2009-06-10T07:07:00.005+02:00

Dear Friends,

We made quite a few video's on our last weekend of flying... and we had a lot of fun! A few good friends came over and flew the Sirocco. All smiling faces. The video files are to big to put on Youtube, but we are editing them at this time to a better format. Please stay tuned!

The little video below shows you how new pilots get used to the nosewheel steering.

With the Sirocco-NG we have differential braking on the main gear. Further look closely at the new wing!

Fly For Fun!

Evert

New wings

2009-05-04T22:30:00.003+02:00

Dear Friends, Al least… we have flown with the new wings… the smile is still on my face! It handles nice… needs less power to fly the same speeds.. flown it smoothly at 80km/h on 75% power. Stall speeds around 50km/h. The parachute is mounted under the fuselage temporarily there I could not fit on the fuselage between the two wings. It will fit there nicely with the new planes. More date after I made more flights!

covering the wing

2009-03-03T17:12:00.006+01:00

Dear Friends! At last! One of the final steps... covering the wing. We use Oratex UL 600 to cover the wing.... the system is new... and needs no coating or paint... its like building a big model airplane.. I will write a complete story on my website soon. Regards, Evert

Wing Data

2009-01-31T22:35:00.003+01:00

Naresh Sharma, the designer of the new Sirocco wing profile came up with the first data required to start weight and balance. With the new wing the drag will be considerable less than the original wing. Remember; the Sirocco stays the easy to fly fun plane!

Last part of flight controls!

2009-01-31T21:59:00.012+01:00

"Make your design simple and add complexity as required" That's what we did! We started with moving the ailerons with cables.. but that did not work. It took to much time to (dis)-connect the wing for transport. It whas a hassle to keep tension on the wires. So we changed to a push-pull tube in the wings and left the cables and pully's in the fuselage. We mounted a simple triangular bellcrank on the fuselage to connect the aluminium tubes in the wings to the cables in the fuselage.. but when moving the stick... the cable got loose at some point... Ed -a very good engineer- came up with the rotating disk idea.. we made one out of aluminium and tried the concept. It worked flawlessly.. very light on the controls. Jaques Pijnenborg made the first "wheel" out of Tufnol.

The next step is whas to guide the cables so they moved freely. We aligned the pully's with making a temporary support made from plywood. With very thin carbon rodds we simulated the steel wires. By laminating the the wooden support with carbon cloth we finished the pully support.

Picture from Norway

2009-01-07T13:34:00.005+01:00

Jonny Ueland -Soutern part of Norway - sent us this picture of his Sirocco. "it flies a big model airplane and it's a dream to land" Jonny made a Youtube video which can be found on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itBdc-jl17g and

http://www.youtube.com/user/pilotjonny

Thanks!

Update Jan 09

2009-01-06T11:37:00.002+01:00

We initially designed the new wing with cables to control the ailerons…. This, we found to heavy to control and too time consuming if you wanted to (dis) connect the wings for transport. Happily we made the decision to change to push-pull tubes before we covered the wing. (As we were about to cover it) This is how the system works now; via cables and pulleys the stick moves the bellcrank on the top of the fuselage. From there small aluminum tubes move the ailerons via a bellcrank in the wing. This bellcrank is designed to cause differential aileron action to minimize the effects of adverse yaw. With the help of many friends we progressing towards covering the wing, weight and balance and the first test flights!

Little history

2009-01-05T12:27:00.002+01:00

The Sirocco is an ultralight airplane which was designed in the early 80's by a company in the South of France called Aviasud. Over 200 machines have been built through the years. Since we bought the tooling to manufacture the Sirocco, we are busy to redesign a few items on the aircraft. There are two main items; the wing and the horizontal tail. The wing will be manufactured with modern composite materials and use ailerons for roll. The original Sirocco's used aluminum with Dacron wings and used "spoilers" for roll control. The materials in the horizontal tail -stabilizer- have changed and also the way it’s connected to the fuselage. As usual with designing something new.. it always takes longer than expected. For now we expect to make the first flights within a few weeks! Keep you updated!