Poll: Van's Twin

[Snowflake]

Does anyone know what happened to the Wing Derringer design? Surely someone owns it or has the drawings or something? It seemed to be a great design.

[jrs14855]

John Thorp designed the Derringer in 1958 as a development of the Sky Scooter. It was "taken over" by George Wing/Hi-Shear Corp. It was developed and certified with help from North American engineers. originally powered by Continental 0 200's with fixed pitch props, all but the first example were powered by Lycoming IO 320 B or C series identical to the Twin Commanche.
Hi-Shear has gone thru various name changes and owners and is still in business. It seems likely that Hi-shear owns the rights to the Derringer.
Both George Wing and John Thorp have been gone for many years.
I saw the 0 200 powered prototype at Rockford EAA in the 60's.
The reality is that most did not want a two place twin. A Miller Conversion Twin Commanche with additional speed mods with outperform the Derringer but the horsepower goes from 160 to 200.

[jrichichi1]

Probably about 15-20 years ago I saw a Wing Derringer up for sale. In addition to the aircraft, the seller supposedly had a set of the production drawings for the aircraft that was included in the sale. Looking back I wish I had bought it. I was relatively broke at the time so no way could I afford it. Not sure how I would have made it happen but it would have been nice.

I thought that maybe someone could try to contact the owners of the Derringer aircraft out there and see if they have a set of plans for the aircraft. You'd pay them just to make a copy of the original plans so you can have them. Not that you'd make an exact duplicate of the aircraft but it would be a good starting point. A lot has changed over the years and using modern aerodynamic and structural analysis to the design along with CNC production of parts could yield some benefits over the original.

Again, not sure if it would sell or not. Most likely not...

[fixnflyguy]

A side note on the Derringer ,( there is one based near me), and my curiosity got me researching. It was designed/built by some airliner guys with resources consistent with big jets(as mentioned in earlier post). It used chemically milled skins that were also hydro pressed.not a cheap route. The aircraft was never really certified, and best I can understand, most were hand built by the design team, although some partially assembled "kits" were finished by individuals. Seeing the one fly into our airport and smoking it over, I was impressed, however, its much of a 2 seat retractable hotrod with twice the basic RV operating cost. When I first heard it coming, I thought it was a 2 -ship RV formation...a cool concept, but I question kit sales numbers vs. design/test/production cost.

[jrs14855]

Where does this stuff come from?? See post 33. John Thorp was not an airliner guy. He designed a number of homebuilt airplanes, some of them intended for production, some strictly homebuilts. The Thorp T18 probably the best known.

[abwaldal@gmail.com]

My real question is WHY?
I can't order a new RV-14 kit and expect to receive it in much less than a year.
With a backlog like that and orders coming in every minute why take the time to do anything except build kits all ready sold.
My business sense opinion.
Art

[jrs14855]

The Derringer that I saw at Rockford/EAA in the 60's was powered with Continental O 200's with fixed pitch metal props that were custom modified for the airplane. Those props did have problems as the prop concept did on many other airplanes. From the second airplane on the engines were identical to the Piper Twin Commanche. The props were Hartzell full feathering constant speed.
Thorp left Lockheed in 1946. His involvement at Lockheed with large airplanes was the P2V Neptune. NO AIRLINBERS.
Thorp did the preliminary design on the Piper PA28 Cherokee which was a four place derivative of the Thorp Sky Scooter.
The Thorp T18 was the first EAB aircraft to fly around the world.
Thorp was the first recipient of the EAA August Raspet Award, an award still sponsored by EAA.

[jrs14855]

Derringer was type certified in 1966. Sir or seven production airplanes we5re completed depending on source. Seven unfinished airplanes were later sold. Nine Derringers remain on the US registry.
The statement about stretch formed chemically milled skins is correct. That was a process that Lockheed used dating to the Constellation and used on the Electra's and probably other Lockheed aircraft.
This information is widely available from multiple sources. Comments such as the "Derringer was never certificated" are hogwash.

[rocketman1988]

Originally Posted by abwaldal@gmail.com

My real question is WHY?
I can't order a new RV-14 kit and expect to receive it in much less than a year.
With a backlog like that and orders coming in every minute why take the time to do anything except build kits all ready sold.
My business sense opinion.
Art

Yeah, no. The R&D guys have nothing to do with the building and shipping of previously ordered kits. I think vans is doing everything they can to catch up on the backlog while also looking to the future.

[PhatRV]

There is one builder extraordinaire who built a twin engine RV6



Here is the article of his endeavor. It can be done but even the builder thinks it is a crazy proposition to try. He probably grafted the RV7 tail to his RV6-T

https://generalaviationnews.com/2021...-engine-rv-6a/