The Lockspeiser LDA-01 ("Land Development Aircraft") was a British seven-tenths scale research and development

tandem wing QAC Quickie Q2 A tandem wing is a wing configuration in which a flying craft or animal has two or more sets of wings set one behind another. All the wings contribute to lift. The tandem wing is distinct from the biplane in which the wings are ...

aircraft, which was designed and built by test pilot and engineer David Lockspeiser to prove a concept for a low-cost utility transport.

Design and development

The LDA-01 was a single-seat tandem-wing monoplane, fabric covered with metal construction. The foreplane had a common design to the separately-made port and starboard wings of the main plane, giving it half the area. The intention was to reduce the number of spare parts needed by re-using the same wing component interchangeably in each location. The main wings were mounted at the rear-end of the box structure fuselage and the fore wing was attached underneath the front. The fuselage was fitted initially with a four-wheeled landing gear and was designed to be fitted with a detachable payload container to allow easy conversion between roles. The landing gear was changed later in development to a more conventional tricycle configuration. It was powered by a rear-mounted pusher engine. The LDA-01 ''G-AVOR'' first flew on 24 August 1971 at

Wisley __NOTOC__ Wisley is a village and civil parish in Surrey, England between Cobham and Woking, in the Borough of Guildford. It is the home of the Royal Horticultural Society's Wisley Garden. The River Wey runs through the village and Ockham and ...

in Surrey, under the power of an 85 hp (63 kW)

Continental C85 The Continental O-190 (Company designations C75 and C85) is a series of engines made by Continental Motors beginning in the 1940s. Of flat-four configuration, the engines produced 75 hp (56 kW) or 85 hp (63 kW) respectively ...

piston engine, but was later refitted with a more powerful

Lycoming O-320 The Lycoming O-320 is a large family of naturally aspirated, air-cooled, four-cylinder, direct-drive engines produced by Lycoming Engines. They are commonly used on light aircraft such as the Cessna 172 and Piper Cherokee. Different variants ...

engine. The aircraft (which by this time had been re-registered ''G-UTIL''), and had been renamed the Boxer 500, was being modified to planned production configuration by Brooklands Aerospace at

Old Sarum Airfield Old Sarum Airfield is a grass strip airfield north-north-east of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. The adjacent areas are a mix of vacant land, residential and industrial sites. Residential areas are to the south and east, occupying the old air ...

when it was destroyed in a fire on 16 January 1987.

Specifications (LDA-01)

References

External links

* {{YouTube, id=SLewWbAltm8 , title=Lockspeiser Aircraft – The Boxer 1970s British experimental aircraft Single-engined pusher aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1971 Tandem-wing aircraft High-wing aircraft Twin-tail aircraft