Photograph:
Super Storch SS Mk 4 VH-ZOR (c/n 052) at Bankstown, NSW in 2000 (David C Eyre)
Country of origin:
Australia
Description:
Two-seat light STOL aircraft
Power Plant:
One 134 kw (180 hp) Lycoming O-360 four-cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engine
Specifications:
- Wingspan: 10.05 m (33 ft)
- Length: 6.82 m (22 ft 4 in)
- Height: 2.43 m (7 ft 10 in)
- Wing area: 15.79 m² (170 sq ft)
- Max speed: 161 km/h (100 mph)
- Cruising speed: 145 km/h (90 mph)
- Stalling speed: 37 km/h (23 mph)
- Rate of climb: 366 m/min (1,200 ft/min)
- Service ceiling: 4,572 m (15,000 ft)
- Range: 741 km (460 miles)
- Fuel capacity: 227 litres (50 Imp gals)
- Take-off run: 46 m (150 ft)
- Landing run: 46 m (150 ft)
- Empty weight: 470 kg (1,036 lb)
- Loaded weight: 862 kg (1,900 lb)
History:
The Super Storch was a development of the Storch by what became Storch Aviation at Beechwood on the NSW north coast. Larger and more powerful than the previous model, the aircraft was produced in kit form for construction by the amateur builder and has been described as a “real bush aircraft for pilots who like more power and greater payload”. The prototype VH-ZOR (c/n 052) was registered on 18 December 1998 and demonstrated at a number of airshows and aviation events around the country before it was exported to the United States as N69UP in October 1999, where it flies in both Canada and Alaska. The Super Storch was produced alongside the smaller aircraft and examples have been exported to a number of countries. The registration VH-ZOR² was used again on 1 October 2000 for another Storch, being c/n SS.4-001, which was exportered to the United States as N2898J in August 2002.
Powered by the Lycoming O-360 engine, the Super Storch has a take-off distance of 30 m (100 ft) and a landing distance of 46 m (150 ft). Seating is for two in tandem. Construction is of welded steel tubing with fabric covering. In later years production of the type has been transferred to Serbia but is reported to have ceased in July 2006 and production was only in relatively small numbers.