The Viking Dragonfly 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 Bob Walters and produced by

Viking Aircraft LLC Viking Aircraft LLC is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. The company specializes in the provision of homebuilt aircraft plans for amateur construction.Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter - Homebuilt Aircraft Sourcebook, Fi ...

Elkhorn, Wisconsin Elkhorn is a city in Walworth County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located southwest of Milwaukee. As of the 2020 census, it was home to 10,247 people, up from 10,084 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat. Geography Elkhorn is located ...

. The aircraft is supplied as a kit or as plans for amateur construction.Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter - Homebuilt Aircraft Sourcebook'', page 284-285. BAI Communications, 15 July 1998.

Design and development

The Dragonfly is a two-seater aircraft that features a

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 ...

layout with a forward wing mounted low and the other behind the cockpit in a shoulder position, 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 ...

enclosed 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

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

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 cockpit is wide The aircraft is constructed from composites, based on construction techniques pioneered by Burt Rutan at Rutan Aircraft Factory (RAF). The airframe design is visually similar to the RAF's Quickie 2, which was developed independently, but the Dragonfly has larger airfoils and a smaller engine, resulting in a slower but more docile handling aircraft. Its forward span wing employs a GU25-5(11)8 mod

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. ...

, when the aft wing (span 22 ft) uses an Eppler 1212 airfoil. Both wings have a total area of . Standard engines used include the

Volkswagen air-cooled engine The Volkswagen air-cooled engine is an air-cooled, gasoline-fuelled, boxer engine with four horizontally opposed cast-iron cylinders, cast aluminum alloy cylinder heads and pistons, magnesium-alloy crankcase, and forged steel crankshaft and co ...

and the

Jabiru 2200 The Jabiru 2200 is a lightweight naturally aspirated, pushrod four-stroke, flat four, air-cooled aircraft engine produced by Jabiru Aircraft. Design and development The conventional direct-drive engine is fitted with an alternator, silencers, ...

four-stroke A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directio ...

powerplants. Construction time from the supplied kit is estimated as 700 hours, while from plans is estimated at over 1200 hours.

Operational history

The Dragonfly was given the Outstanding New Design Award at the EAA Convention in 1980."General Flight"
''Flight International'', 1 November 1980 p1681 By 1998, 500 examples of all variants were reported as flying.

Variants

Viking Aircraft Dragonfly Luftfahrtmuseum Wernigerode 1

;Dragonfly Mk I :Original version with main landing gear mounted in fairings at the lower wing tips. Operations require paved runways and wide taxiways due to widely spaced main wheels. ;Dragonfly Mk II :Version with

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 ...

. ;Dragonfly Mk III :Version with

tricycle landing 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 ...

Specifications (Mark III Millenium)

References

* Jackson, Paul. ''Jane's All The World's Aircraft 2003–2004''. Coulsdon, UK: Jane's Information Group, 2003. .

External links