| PA-8 Skycycle | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Type | Light aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Piper Aircraft |
| Designer | A. Hanford Eckman[1] |
| Number built | 2 |
| History | |
| First flight | 1945 |
| Variant | Carlson Skycycle |
ThePiper PA-8 Skycycle was a 1940sAmerican single-seat light aircraft designed and built byPiper Aircraft at theirLock Haven, Pennsylvania plant. Towards the end of 1944 Piper announced a number of aircraft it intended to build after thesecond world war. One of these was thePWA-8, (Post War Airplane 8) an aerodynamic test aircraft was built with the nameCub Cycle and it first flew on 27 August 1944 with a small two–cylinderFranklin Engine. The Franklin engine was replaced by a four–cylinder Continental A-40-3 of 37 hp (28 kW); the aircraft first flew with the Continental engine on 12 September 1944. The Skycycle was a fabric-covered mid-wing single-engined single-seat monoplane with atailwheel landing gear. The fuselage was produced using an auxiliary belly fuel tank as used on theF4U Corsair. The Cub Cycle was scrapped and a similar but new aircraft was built with the nameSkycycle, which first flew on 29 January 1945 using the same Continental engine as the Cub Cycle. The aircraft was further modified in 1945 with a four-cylinder 55 hp (41 kW) Lycoming O-145-A2 engine and designated thePA-8 Skycycle. No further examples were built.
A replica of the PA-8 Skycycle, theCarlson Skycycle, was built in 1995 by Ernst W. Carlson and produced byCarlson Aircraft ofEast Palestine, Ohio. Carlson intended to sell the aircraft in kit form, but no orders were forthcoming and the prototype was donated to thePiper Aviation Museum, since the original PA-8 was no longer in existence.[1][2][3][4]
Data from[5]
General characteristics
Performance
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