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| STANDARD DATA: Gross wt. 2,900. Empty wt. 1,610. Fuel capacity 90. Wingspan 29’7″. Engines two 160-hp Lycomings. PERFORMANCE: Top mph 214. Cruise mph 210. Stall mph 75. Climb rate 1,600. Range 1,128. (No plans available.) |
The Rutan Defiant is a four-seat twin-engine proofof-concept offshoot of the other Rutan canard designs. The Defiant was intended for eventual mass production. It made use of the VariEze rear-mounted swept cantilever wings with winglet surfaces, canard foreplane, and a retractable nose wheel with a fixed main landing gear. The two engines were mounted in tractor and pusher positions feeding off a 45-gallon tank for each. The Defiant was intended to be a simple aircraft with no flaps, fixed-pitch propellers, and few complex systems. Its designers claimed that the Defiant had no minimum controllable airspeed.
