Aero-TV: Kolb Aircraft to Resume Production of Select Models
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 25 авг 2024
- New Owners Look to Revitalize Popular Ultralight Marque
Kolb Aircraft Company is a Kentucky-based manufacturer of kit-built ultralight aircraft.
Founded in 1980 by Homer Kolb-who flew his initial design, the Kolb Flyer, in 1970-the company has marketed a dozen models of ultralight and experimental flying-machines, selling and delivering over 3,500 specimens in the last 43-years.
In 1999, the company was sold to a group of investors; moved to London, Kentucky; and renamed The New Kolb Aircraft Company. Re-mastered, relocated, and rebranded, the New Kolb concern introduced several fresh models to the legacy Kolb lineup, to include the Pelican and the Super Sport.
In March 2012, the company was again sold, this time to Bryan Melborn, who renamed the enterprise Kolb Aircraft Company LLC. Hard times ensued, however, and Mr. Melborn-saddled with debt and hampered by supply-chain issues-sold the company to its current owners, Messrs. Tom Cooper and Charles May, who got immediately and urgently about the business of revitalizing the popular aircraft marque.
Straight-away, Cooper and May restarted production of Kolb’s Firefly and Firestar models.
The Kolb Firefly is an open-cockpit, single-seat, high-wing, ultralight aircraft intended for amateur construction. The machine is powered by an aft-facing, forty-horsepower, Rotax 447, twin-cylinder, two-stroke engine turning a pusher propeller. An evolution of Kolb’s Firestar model, the Firefly was designed in 1995 to comply with the FAA’s Part 103 ultralight regulations.
The Kolb Firefly’s forward fuselage is fashioned from welded 4130 steel tubing mated to an aluminum tail-boom terminating in a conventional empennage comprising fixed horizontal and vertical stabilizers fitted with trailing-edge elevator and rudder assemblies. The Firefly’s wings and empennage are built of riveted aluminum tubing clad in doped fabric. To better facilitate ground transport and storage, the aircraft’s wings are quick-folding.
Options available to Firefly kit-buyers include a completely enclosed cockpit, wheel-brakes, a Ballistic Parachute Recovery System (BPRS), and steel-tube powder-coating.
The Firefly’s performance figures, though less than Earth-shattering, are excellent for an aircraft of its design. Bounded top-and-bottom by a 61-knot Vne and a glacial, 23-knot Vso stall-speed, the Firefly’s flight envelope predicates stability over outright speed.
A small aircraft, the Firefly’s five-hundred-pound maximum gross weight comprises a 253-pound empty-weight and a five-gallon (thirty-pound) fuel capacity.
The Kolb Firestar-formerly offered in iterations such as the Firestar I, II, II SS, and Tandem-occasions a close, if not less powerful, approximation of its Firefly progeny. The two aircraft sport many of the same architectural features, to include their fuselage, tail-boom, empennage, and undercarriage designs.
The Firestar, however, is powered by a comparatively modest, 28-horsepower, single-cylinder, Rotax 503 two-stroke engine which manages to motivate the machine to a Vne of 55-knots and a cruise speed of 46-knots.
Notwithstanding equal (five-gallon) fuel capacities and an inconsequential one-pound difference in the Firefly’s and Firestar’s empty weights (253-pounds and 254-pounds respectively), the Firestar’s maximum gross weight exceeds that of the firefly by fifty-pounds-implying a slightly increased useful load.
In addition to the Firefly and Firestar models, Kolb Aircraft’s new owners are contemplating renewed production of the firm’s STOL-optimized Twinstar Mk. III aircraft. Though not currently in production, the larger (one-thousand-pound maximum gross weight), more powerful (one-hundred-horsepower Rotax 912S or Jabiru 2200 engine) Twinstar Mk. III-if produced-promises to disrupt the Experimental STOL aircraft market.
Parties interested in learning more about Kolb Aircraft and its products are invited to visit the company’s website via the FMI link below.
Aero-TV is a production of the Internationally syndicated Aero-News Network. Seen worldwide by hundreds of thousands of aviators and aviation adherents, ANN's Aero-TV has produced over 5000 aviation and feature programs, including nearly 2000 episodes of our daily aviation news program, AIRBORNE UNLIMITED, currently hosted by Holland Lee. Now in its third decade of operation, parent company Aero-News Network, has the most aggressive and intensive editorial profile of any aviation news organization and has published nearly a half-million news and feature stories since its inception -- having pioneered the online 24/7 aviation new-media model that so many have emulated.
©2023 Aero-News Network, Inc., ALL Rights Reserved
FMI: www.aero-news.net, / aerotvnetwork , www.airbornetv.net, www.kolbaircraft.com
This is great news. Kolb is one of the true classics of the ultralight movement and it was sad to see the company fading away. I've lusted after a Kolb for years but either didn't have the resources to buy one or the right one never came along. If the new owners ever reintroduce the Slingshot, I'll be BEGGING them to take my money!
I have always wanted to own one and thank you for restarting that possibility.
This looks like an awesome ultralight airplane, just wish you could elaborate on the engine hp.the prop ,speed ect. Thanks for posting
Nice airplane! Good luck!
Most aircraft manufacturers dont advertise to the general public. They should
Just learned about the twinstar and it’s existence! I am hopeful to see its return, it sounds amazing :)
What i don’t understand is why don’t they use BMW 1200cc motorcycle engines for ultralights? Air/oil cooled and they have dual ignition.
Most people have never heard of a ultralight
That should be illegal to admit.
Thankfully we have a much better economy than a few years ago.
Still not producing the Twinstar Mk 111! That was their best selling plane! What supply issues could be different from model to model? They are all made out of the same materials.