Michael,



I understand what you are saying, but 2 of the 4 aircraft designs you
mentioned have valid owners who are in business selling plans and parts.
I seriously doubt if Rand Robinson Engineering would take kindly to
someone making copies of their plans and selling them or giving them
away for free. As I stated before, you cannot build a Q2 simply from a
set of plans. There are several (at least 3) tandem wing fly-ins held
across the US every year for the last 10 or so years (one has been going
for about 20 years). I have an fairly good database of Dragonfly
builders and flyers, let me know where you are located and I will try to
hook you up with someone so you can look at a Dragonfly first hand.



I agree that the interest in the Dragonfly has decreased. I would say
the decrease started many years ago, before Slipstream even purchased
the design rights...and Slipstream did little to promote the aircraft.
Membership on this email list server has increased about 5 fold since I
transferred the email list to (what is now) Yahoo Groups. We currently
have 942 members and started out with less than 200 back in November
2000.



I bought my first Dragonfly project without ever having seen one in
person.



Jeff



From: Dragonflylist@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:Dragonflylist@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Michael Smith
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 8:34 PM
To: Dragonflylist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Dragonflylist] Re: Original Viking Dragonfly MKI License



Well, what drove me to question the license was that I was browsing the
web searching for the newest and lastest homebuilts out there, came
across the KRSuper2, saw that they were free plans (in progress), came
across the KR series, Q-series, and some others and they all seems to
have a pretty good following... plans easily accessible, etc. whereas
the Dragonfly plans, well, just doesn't seem to be as visible. So I
started simply wondering if the Dragonfly would fall in that category
where the plans could be distributed much like the Q-series all to make
the Dragonfly more visible, more appealing, all to gain more interest.
I noticed that now, even Wicks and Aircraft Spruce no longer list the
Dragonfly, its part, plans etc. With only one outlet now, which I guess
is the Dragonflylist, its popularity wont grow... how would a newcomer
to homebuilts even know that the Dragonfly even exists without buying
some older EAA books or randomly running into one?

I'm 38, and as far as I can remember, I have followed the Dragonfly
since its early days and one day, I will have one. I would never sell
my plans. On a regular basis, i'll pull out my plans and videos and
have a good time just reading and watching.

I've never seen a dragonfly in person, flown or ridden, but in the years
of following by way of pictures and specs, i've grown to love the
dragonfly and it worries me that the popularity is diminishing.

But maybe it isn't. Maybe im wrong. This was just a weak attempt at
possibly increasing the popularity by finding a loophole...

Michael

(im am curious though about a completely off topic but while in mind;
how many builders have actually started building with never actually
seeing a DF in person)






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