Badland Aircraft of Truman, Minnesota, premiered its F-1 (named for the Fujita tornado scale) Ultralight in 2015. Since then, they have sold 29 kits and have 9 aircraft flying. For the past year, Badland has been working on a new and more powerful four stroke engine for the F-1, based on a Honda single cylinder, 420cc industrial engine. Badland’s CEO, Chris Deuel, developed the engine using a custom cam, engineered crankshaft, roller rockers and titanium valves. He also designed, fabricated and perfected his own 2.55 to 1 re-drive for the engine. The result is a light and reliable powerplant that puts out just under 40 horsepower and 270 pounds of thrust, using a three-blade ground adjustable E-Prop.
Deuel has run the new engine through 35 hours of reliability testing, 15 of which were in the air on the F-1. He could not be happier. He reports the “Thump Air “ engine is so powerful that he has to adjust the propeller to keep from exceeding the 55 knot ultralight top speed restriction. Duel also noted an 800 fpm climb in the F-1 with a 180 pound pilot.
The Badland F-1 kit comes fully welded with everything necessary to fly firewall aft, including the fabric, basic instruments and even new Badland Bush tires (also manufactured in house). With the new engine, Badlands promises the final product will come in at 247 pounds and fly just like a Cub. An electric starter will add 4 pounds. The wings are designed to fold, allowing the entire aircraft to fit into a 20′ X 8-1/2′ box trailer. The airframe kit is priced at $16,175 and the firewall forward kit, including the Thump Air engine and E-prop will sell for around $5000-7000. For more information, visit badlandaircraft.com.
Cool sounds cheaper than a kitfox!👍