This situation was addressed at the 2010 Black Sands Flyin at Raglan where Wayne Butt trailered his Cri Cri ZK-CRI up from New Plymouth.
The Columban MC-10 Cri Cri (Cricket) was designed in the early 1970's by French aeronauatical engineer Michel Columban, being one of his earliest designs, and it is the smallest twin aircraft in the world. Columban went on to design the MC-100 which is better known as the Dyn Aero MCR-01 of which we have several examples in New Zealand (another story).
The Cri Cri is really tiny with a wingspan of 4.9 metres (16 ft 1 inch), and a length og 3.9 metres (12 ft 8 inches). Its wing area is only 33 square feet (compare this to a Jodel D 9!). It has an empty weight of 78 Kg (172 lbs) and a MAUW of 170 Kg (375 lbs). It cruises at around 100 mph and is aerobatic. It is an interesting aircraft and has been developed in Canada with 2 tiny jet engines which results in a cruise of 150 mph! And in France, an electric version was unveiled in June 2010 at the Green Aviation Airshow at Le Bourget.
This photo shows just how tiny the Cri Cri is, being demonstrated by Wayne Butt at Raglan. ZK-CRI (c/n 627) was built by Wayne Butt and he has a really interesting website detailing the project (www.cricri.zoomshare.com/ ). It was registered on 26/6/08.
ZK-CRI has a really neat trailer as shown behind in this view. The engines are 240 cc 3W Modelmotoren horizontally opposed 2 strokes producing 22 HP each. A very nice aeroplane.
New Zealand's first Cri Cri was ZK-LBW (c/n 12-0335) was built by Nev Hay of Auckland, and it was first registered on 21/3/02. It is photo'd here at the 2010 SAANZ flyin at Tauranga with Nev Hay providing the scale this time.
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