Photograph:
STOL King at the Preceptor facility in the United States (Preceptor Aircraft)
Country of origin:
United States of America
Description:
Two-seat light STOL sport monoplane
Power Plant:
One 110 kw (150 hp) Lycoming O-320 four-cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engine
Specifications:
- Wingspan: 9.6 m (31 ft 6 in)
- Length: 7.3 m (23 ft 8 in)
- Height: 2.22 m (7 ft 3 in)
- Wing area: 14.70 m² (158.2 sq ft)
- Max speed: 200 km/h (124 mph)
- Cruising speed: 160 km/h (99 mph)
- Stalling speed: 24 km/h (15 mph)
- Rate of climb: 366 m/min (1,200 ft/min)
- Range: 515 km (320 miles)
- Fuel capacity: 76 litres (17 Imp gals)
- Empty weight: 286 kg (631 lb)
- Loaded weight: 560 kg (1,235 lb)
History:
The STOL King was designed and produced by Preceptor Aircraft based at Rutherfordton in North Carolina as an amateur-built light aircraft to be available as plans or kit. It featured a strut-braced, high-wing with provision for two in tandem in an enclosed cockpit with a fixed conventional tailwheel undercarriage and an engine in the tractor configuration. Resembling a scale Fieseler Storch it is said to be able to achieve slow flight of 26 km/h (16 mph) and a landing speed of 24 km/h (15 mph). Construction is of welded 4130 steel tube, with the wings built of aluminium, the flying surfaces and fuselage covered in doped aircraft fabric. The wing has V-struts and jury struts, and is able to be folded for transportation or storage.
Engines ranging from 56 kw to 112 kw (75 to 150 hp) can be installed, ranging from the 56 kw (75 hp) Volkswagen conversion through the Lycoming O-235 of 87 kw (116 hp) to the 112 kw (150 hp) Lycoming O-320. At least one example has been completed in Australia and is fitted with a Subaru EA-81 engine. This aircraft was registered under RAA regulations on 19 March 2008 as 19-5375 (c/n not known). One is noted to have overturned on take-off on 31 October 2013 at Atherton in Queensland.