The Pro-Composites Vision is an American

amateur-built aircraft Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenn ...

, designed by Steve Rahm and produced by Pro-Composites of

Buffalo Grove, Illinois Buffalo Grove, officially the Village of Buffalo Grove, is a village in Lake and Cook County, Illinois. A suburb of Chicago, it lies about northwest of Downtown Chicago. As of the 2020 Census, Buffalo Grove has a population of 43,212. It tot ...

. The aircraft is supplied in the form of plans for amateur construction, with some pre-formed parts made available to speed construction.Bayerl, Robby; Martin Berkemeier; et al: ''World Directory of Leisure Aviation 2011-12'', page 116. WDLA UK, Lancaster UK, 2011. Tacke, Willi; Marino Boric; et al: ''World Directory of Light Aviation 2015-16'', page 121. Flying Pages Europe SARL, 2015. The design was originally marketed by American Affordable Aircraft of

Daytona Beach Daytona Beach, or simply Daytona, is a coastal resort-city in east-central Florida. Located on the eastern edge of Volusia County near the Atlantic coastline, its population was 72,647 at the 2020 census. Daytona Beach is approximately nort ...

.Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter - Homebuilt Aircraft Sourcebook, Fifth Edition'', page 115. BAI Communications, 15 July 1998.

Design and development

The Vision features a cantilever

low wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

, a two-seats-in-

side-by-side configuration Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

cockpit under a

bubble canopy A bubble canopy is an aircraft canopy constructed without bracing, for the purpose of providing a wider unobstructed field of view to the pilot, often providing 360° all-round visibility. The designs of bubble canopies can drastically vary; so ...

, fixed

conventional landing gear Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...

or optional

tricycle gear 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 g ...

with

wheel pants An aircraft fairing is a structure whose primary function is to produce a smooth outline and reduce drag.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, Third Edition'', page 206. Aviation Supplies & Academics Inc, Newcastle Washington, 1997. ...

and a single engine in

tractor configuration In aviation, the term tractor configuration refers to an aircraft constructed in the standard configuration with its engine mounted with the propeller in front of it so that the aircraft is "pulled" through the air. Oppositely, the pusher c ...

. The Vision SP model is made from pre-formed flat

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

and foam composite panels which are then radius bent to shape. Its span wing employs a NACA 63A-415

airfoil An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbine. ...

at the

wing root The wing root is the part of the wing on a fixed-wing aircraft or winged-spaceship that is closest to the fuselage,Peppler, I.L.: ''From The Ground Up'', page 9. Aviation Publishers Co. Limited, Ottawa Ontario, Twenty Seventh Revised Edition, 1996 ...

, transitioning to a NACA 63A-412 airfoil at the

wing tip A wing tip (or wingtip) is the part of the wing that is most distant from the fuselage of a fixed-wing aircraft. Because the wing tip shape influences the size and drag of the wingtip vortices, tip design has produced a diversity of sha ...

. The wing has an area of , with the cockpit up to in width. The tricycle landing gear version features a fully castering nosewheel and differential braking for steering. The aircraft can accept engines of and the Subaru Stratus,

Lycoming O-235 The Lycoming O-235 is a family of four-cylinder, air-cooled, horizontally opposed piston aircraft engines that produce , derived from the earlier O-233 engine.Textron Lycoming: ''Operator's Manual, Textron Lycoming Aircraft Engines, Series O-23 ...

and

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 ...

have been used. The manufacturer markets the design as "the only all composite, plans built, 2 seat sport aircraft that uses a conventional - non canard - platform."

Variants

;Vision SP :Model with a short wing of span, an area of and an aspect ratio of 5.5:1. ;Vision EX :Model with a longer wing of span, an area of and an aspect ratio of 6.6:1, optimized for higher altitude flying, carrying heavier loads and operation by less experienced pilots.

Specifications (Vision SP)

References

External links

* {{Pro-Composites aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Low-wing aircraft

Vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain un ...

1990s United States sport aircraft