Design and Construction of Sprite: An account of the design and construction methods of a light aircraft designed to be amateur built Available to Purchase

DURING the spring of 1968, Pilot magazine initiated the design of a homebuilt aircraft. The intention was to follow through the design in a series of articles highlighting the problems, difficulties and, hopefully, successes of the project. The initial design was undertaken by the staff of the magazine defining the basic specification of the aircraft as a two‐place, all‐metal tourer/sports plane of modern style, capable of 5 hours' endurance, and arriving at the aircraft shown in Fig. 1. It is a sensibly small aircraft of 24ft. wing span and 20 ft. overall length with a constant 4 ft. wing chord to give a gross wing area of 96 sq. ft. The cockpit area, covered with a one‐piece sliding canopy, is a generous 48 in. wide with ample leg room forward and luggage space aft.