I'll try once more to prove that wing loading is the key to sucess. When I flew and fabricated aerial targets for the Unites States military we were tasked by the Army to provide a target to be used for aerial tracking and targeting. This target was to be used to redesign the computer software in the Apache helicopter fire control system. The target would have the same dimensions of a full scale Cessna 150 in 1/2 scale. I suggested that we copy the airfoils of the Golberg Falcom 56 and design it as a taildragger. We built the prototype using conventional carpentry methods using aircraft grade plywood and Stika spruce for all the stringers. It was powered by a Kawaski snowmobile engine. The plane weighed 110 lbs dry and 140 lbs wet. We test flew it off our dry lake sight and it proved to be a winner or so we thought. We took it to White Sands were the test were to be conducted. Upon arrival we were escorted to our airfield which turned out to be a unimproved dirt road. We had about 150 ft of useable road and all three of our targets crashed on takeoff. The reason came back to wing loading. The army was not pleased but they agreed to build us a useable runway. We ended up with a strip 800X100 ft in dimensions. Since we were working directly with Army aviation units they understood the wing loading dilema and asked if we could construct an airframe half the weight. Naturally we said yes and provided them with an airframe constucted totally from composite materials. Using this mean of construction we could now takeoff in less than 150 ft but the cost per airframe quaddroupled and the Army could not justify this increase.



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