Questair Venture
| Questair Venture & Spirit | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Questair Venture landing | |
| Role | Kit aircraft |
| National origin | United States |
| Manufacturer | Questair |
| Designer | Jim Griswold |
| First flight | 1 July 1987 |
| Status | In production |
| Number built | 62 (2011) |
The Questair Venture is a homebuilt aircraft manufactured by Questair at John Bell Williams Airport in Bolton, Mississippi, United States. The aircraft first flew on 1 July 1987.
Questair Inc was founded by Ed MacDonough in the mid 1980s. The Venture was designed by Jim Griswold, an engineer with Piper Aircraft, and used technology from the Piper Malibu. The layout of the design was intended to combine a large two-seat side-by-side cabin with rear baggage space in the smallest possible airframe, having a highly streamlined design.
The aircraft is of all-metal construction using pre-formed multi-curvature panels and is supplied as a kit to homebuilders. The Venture has a complex tricycle retractable undercarriage, but the Spirit version has a fixed spatted main landing gear, the nose landing gear remaining retractable. The engine is a Continental IO-550-G, designed specifically for the aircraft.
The first Venture made its maiden flight on 1 July 1987, and in 1991 it was followed by the Questair Spirit which had an optional third rear seat as well as fixed tricycle undercarriage. Both types have been built from kits by amateur constructors and over 30 had been completed by 2001. In 1991, a Questair Venture set a time-to-climb record for its class of two minutes, thirty-one seconds to reach 3000 meters. The record stood until broken in 1999 by the custom-built Bohannon B-1.
Data from Simpson, 2001, p. 455 and Kitplanes
General characteristics
Performance
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