Rutan Quickie

The Rutan Quickie is a lightweight single-seat taildragger aircraft of composite construction, configured with a tandem wing.

The Quickie was primarily designed by Burt Rutan as a low-powered but highly efficient kit-plane. Its tandem wing design has one forward wing and one slightly larger rear wing. The forward wing has full-span control surfaces and is thus not dissimilar to a canard wing, but is considerably larger. The aircraft has unusual landing gear, with the main wheels located at the tips of the forward wing.

Design and development

The Quickie Aircraft Corporation was formed to produce and market the Quickie in kit form after 1978. Two years later a two-seater variant of the same layout followed as the Q2. The original Quickie (Model 54 in Rutan’s design series) is one of several unconventional aircraft penned by Rutan for the general aviation market.

The Quickie followed from Jewett and Sheehan's intention in 1975 for a low-cost, low-power, single-seat homebuilt aircraft. The first element to be found by Jewett and Sheehan was the engine, which – although low-powered (they had anticipated 12 hp) – had to be reliable for aviation work. With the help of Onan, a manufacturer of industrial four-stroke engines, they were able to procure a 70 lb (32 kg) engine that would deliver 18 hp (14 kW) at 3,600 rpm.