Student-built plane lands at aviation museum
Posted Aug 9, 2011 05:56:57 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
There’s a new sight to see at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum.
An airplane built by undergraduate students at the University of Sherbrooke has landed itself a spot in the museum’s collections.
Épervier X-01 was nearly silent in its approach to the runway.
David Rancourt piloted the small plane. He’s one of a group of students who built it.
They engineered the plane from scratch and Rancourt tells 1310News it can perform a number of tricks.
“This airplane can do a lot of things,” he says. “It’s fully aerobatic, so it’s designed to do all the crazy stuff we see on TV, except that it costs around one-fifth of the price.”
He says they built it completely from scratch.
“It’s only made from raw materials like glass fibre, carbon fibres,” says Rancourt. “We built this aircraft without any moulds.”
The group came up with the $70,000 project in 2006 and now it’s made its final approach to its new home at the museum where it will be viewed by hundreds of airplane enthusiasts every year.
Click to watch Épervier X-01 land.
