Lab Scientist Has the Best of Both Worlds; no-tow glider

URL: http://www.abqjournal.com/biz/159977business04-03-04.htm
Saturday, April 3, 2004
Lab Scientist Has the Best of Both Worlds
By Andrew Webb, Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer

Look out, Vern Raburn.

An Albuquerque air acrobat and lab scientist is thinking about giving you a run for your money in the Very Light Jet business.

Bob Carlton, who runs one-man firm Silent Wing Airshows, reported Friday that he successfully test-flew a one-seat 388-pound glider powered by two 5-pound model airplane jet engines last week.

Unlike typical gliders, which require a tow from a powered airplane to get aloft, Carlton's Silent-J takes off under its own power. Then the engines are powered down and folded back into the fuselage on a custom-built pylon. They can be extended and restarted if the pilot needs to regain altitude.

Carlton says he envisions someday selling the $5,000 engines and their retracting pylon as a kit that other pilots could attach to gliders. He plans, also, to build a sleeker, smaller 1-seat jet powered by a similar model-plane engine that could cruise at 250 knots.

By comparison, the $1 million, 6-seat Eclipse 500, which is to be built in Albuquerque, weighs about 11/2 tons and cruises at about 375 knots.

"This aircraft has taken the Very Light Jet to an entirely new level," said Carlton, who, when not performing aerial stunts with gliders and powered aircraft, is a designer of rocket control system hardware at Sandia National Laboratories.

He said he decided to modify his Italian Alisport sailplane, which originally came with a much heavier piston engine that assisted the plane into the air with a propeller, "just for the novelty of it."

"Especially in the air show business, something new and different?- the idea of jets on a glider?- is something that has a certain crowd appeal," he admits.

They cost a lot less, too, he says.

The engines, which produce about 45 pounds of thrust each, have only one moving part and are very reliable, notes Jim Weigle, owner of West Virginia-based Aviation Microjet Technology, which builds small engines for everything from model aircraft to military targets and drones. They've been put on everything from bicycles to cars, Weigle said.

"It's just neat as can be," he said.

But don't ask for a refund on that Eclipse deposit just yet.

Weigle's idea, at least for now, will remain on the fringe of the personal aircraft world. He says he doesn't expect to apply for any sort of FAA certification beyond that required for single-passenger homemade and kit-built aircraft.