The Optica was designed to be an observation aircraft. The prototype first flew in 1979. Powered first by an O-360 Lycoming engine and later by an O-540, which drove a ducted fan, the Optica was touted as having the observational visibility of helicopter with the lower operating costs, lower noise and longer flight duration of an airplane.
One of the early models stalled and crashed in the early 1980s. The company formed to produce it in the UK first went bankrupt, then there was a suspicious fire at the factory which destroyed a number of airplanes in varying stages of completion along with the production tooling. The designer has never given up trying to bring it back and apparently came close two years ago, before the Goldman Sachs recession took hold.
The idea of an airplane with a helicopter nose has not disappeared, though, as an Australian company has produced an airplane that resembles a land-based Seabee.
I remember this airplane vividly, if not completely!
ReplyDeleteIt was years before I learned to fly, and I remember trying to find it again after the internet grew up and I could search for it.
I wonder what it would feel like to fly, if they got the forward and downward view really uncluttered.
There is one of these based at my medium-sized airport, I saw it at an open house last summer. What an interesting airplane -- I tried to find the owner to hear about it's flying characteristics, but just got some pictures on the ground. What a view that must be!
ReplyDeleteSarah, I think there may be two in the States. N198DP is a 1989 model and is registered as standard class, normal category. N130DP is a 1987 model and is registered as experimental-exhibition.
ReplyDeleteThere is a TC, A64EU. The TC was revised in 2007, which indicates that there was a recent plan to produce the aircraft.