Caro 1 motorglider first flight

[SonjaCE]

I performed the first flight of my Caro 1 motorglider, which I designed and built, in November last year. It is an all composite tandem seater with a front 80 hp VW engine, wingspan 16.5m.

I have added a page with pictures and flight test comments on my web site www.caro-engineering.com

[Steve Sliwa]

Please keep us informed on your progress.  It looks like a beauty.

[BL]

I am in envy of what you have produced.

I would like to know whether, if you were to create the same craft again from nothing, would you be able to significantly shorten the total time you invested?  If so, how?

Perhaps you wished to enjoy every detail and minute of the process, and shortening the time would be an anathema.

[SonjaCE]

There is not much chance of shortening the build process doing it the way I did it. The only way to get there quicker would be with production tooling, assembling the parts from a kit.

I am a creative person and like to build things, so it was overall enjoyable, but often very hard and difficult.
 

[BL]

Would it make sense to try to buy wings from a manufacturer of an existing glider design, to reduce the number of design and construction challenges (for me)?  Perhaps the load capacity would be insufficient for those wings.

[SonjaCE]

It would only save about 3 years, the fuselage was much more work than the wings.

[BL]

On a completely ridiculous note: would you comment on the desire to have a PBS TP100 turboprop powered motorglider?