The Scoda Aeronáutica Super Pétrel is an

amphibious Amphibious means able to use either land or water. In particular it may refer to: Animals * Amphibian, a vertebrate animal of the class Amphibia (many of which live on land and breed in water) * Amphibious caterpillar * Amphibious fish, a fish ...

pusher configuration In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in nor ...

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

, seating two side-by-side, first brought into production in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

in 2002 by EDRA Aeronáutica, although the original design had French parentage. Production in 2011 offered kit and flyaway forms. Since 2014, the Super Petrel LS has been manufactured b
Scoda Aeronáutica
of Ipeúna,

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

, Brazil.

Design and development

The design of the Super Petrel has its origins in the Tisserand Hydroplum, a single-seat, wooden amphibian intended for kit building first flown in 1983 and its two-seat, Rotax 532-powered development, the Hydroplum II, in 1986. The Société Morbihannaise d'Aéro Navigation (SMAN) acquired production rights to the latter in 1987, marketing it as the Pétrel, and passed them on to Billie Marine when SMAN ceased trading. In 2002 the Super Petrel 100 was developed by Edra Aeronautica. Since 2014 the design was being produced by Scoda Aeronáutica of Ipeúna,

, Brazil. The Super Petrel is of mixed construction, though with much use of

composite material A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...

s. The wings have tubular aluminium alloy spars combined with PVC foam ribs. The

leading edge The leading edge of an airfoil surface such as a wing is its foremost edge and is therefore the part which first meets the oncoming air.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 305. Aviation Supplies & Academics, ...

s and wingtips are formed from

glass fibre Glass fiber ( or glass fibre) is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass. Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the inventio ...

composite, with fabric covering elsewhere. The wings have constant

chord Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord ( ...

and zero sweep, with angled winglet tips; the upper wing has the greater span, less dihedral (2° 13′ compared with 3° 26′). There is slight stagger. The Super Petrel is a

single bay A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

biplane with N-form aluminium interplane struts with an additional diagonal strut in each bay from the lower

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

to the top of the interplane struts. The centre section is supported by a pylon or cabane which also contains the engine mounting.

Aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...

s are carried only by the upper wings; there are no flaps. The wings can be disassembled in about 30 minutes for transportation by trailer. The single-step hull is an

epoxy Epoxy is the family of basic components or cured end products of epoxy resins. Epoxy resins, also known as polyepoxides, are a class of reactive prepolymers and polymers which contain epoxide groups. The epoxide functional group is also coll ...

/ carbon fibre foam monocoque, with a carbon fibre boom supporting the all-composite, cruciform and wire braced tail unit. The rear control surfaces are

balanced In telecommunications and professional audio, a balanced line or balanced signal pair is a circuit consisting of two conductors of the same type, both of which have equal impedances along their lengths and equal impedances to ground and to other ...

. The cockpit is forward of the central pylon and seats two side-by-side with dual controls. It may be flown open, with just a windscreen, or enclosed by the single piece, forward-hinged canopy. There is a baggage compartment behind the seating. The Super Petrel has a short legged

tricycle undercarriage Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle ge ...

for land operation; the main units, which have

hydraulic brake A hydraulic brake is an arrangement of braking mechanism which uses brake fluid, typically containing glycol ethers or diethylene glycol, to transfer pressure from the controlling mechanism to the braking mechanism. History During 1904, Frederick ...

s, retract upwards through 90° into the sides of the hull with the wheels exposed but recessed into the underside of the lower wing. The steerable nosewheel retracts forward, leaving the tyre partly exposed as a docking fender. A pair of small, stepped floats on the lower wings below the interplane struts stabilise the aircraft on water. The Super Petrel is powered by a 73.5 kW (98.6 hp) Rotax 912ULS

flat-four engine A flat-four engine, also known as a horizontally opposed-four engine, is a four-cylinder piston engine with two banks of cylinders lying on opposite sides of a common crankshaft. The most common type of flat-four engine is the boxer-four engine, ...

mounted in pusher configuration on the central pylon just below the upper wing. It drives a three-blade Airplast

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

, either a fixed pitch model 175 or an electrically controlled,

variable pitch Flight dynamics in aviation and spacecraft, is the study of the performance, stability, and control of vehicles flying through the air or in outer space. It is concerned with how forces acting on the vehicle determine its velocity and attitude wi ...

model PV 50.

Operational history

Seven Super Petrel appeared on the civil aircraft registers of European countries, excluding

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

in mid-2010. There have also been sales in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

as well as in Brazil where there were 50 registered by December 2009.

Variants

;Super Petrel 100: Designed in 2002. Lowered engine line, revised undercarriage and controls. Structural alterations with more carbon fibre; wingtips with washout and winglets which increased the span of both wings; floats moved from tips to wing underside. ;Super Petrel LS: Designed in 2009. 280 mm (11 in) longer and with a 25 km/h (16 mph) increase in cruising speed; greater fuel capacity; redesigned cabin and tail group. Sold in the US b
Super Petrel USA
;

AAC SeaStar The AAC SeaStar is an amphibious biplane that was produced in kitplane form. The aircraft is built largely of composite materials and features wings that may be easily removed for transport, and a ballistic recovery system in the form of a pa ...

SP: North American version marketed by Amphibian Airplanes of Canada (AAC).

Specifications (Super Petrel LS)

References

External links