Cri Cri – REALLY Small Homebuilt!

World’s Smallest Twin Engine Aircraft
The Cri-Cri, originally conceived in the mid 1950’s by Michel Colomban of
France, this tiny aircraft had it’s maiden flight July 19, 1973 with two 9hp
engines.
It has an empty weight of 172 pounds, but an ultimate load factor of +9 and
-4.5 g’s with a cruise airspeed of about 135mph, and a Vne of 160mph. Total
fuel is 6.1 gallons and a build time of about 1300-2000 hours. It is strictly
plans built. The average cost of building a Cri-Cri is about $15-20,000usd
Several hundred Cri-Cri’s have been built and are flying worldwide, primarily
in it’s native France. But, an incident involving a fatality in the United
States and the resulting lawsuit, persuaded Mr. Colomban to discontinue any
support of the North American continent. This incident’s roots lay in
modifications to his original design by a well known American company that
was marketing modified kits with design compromised components. The Cri-Cri,
if built to original specifications, is quite safe and strong, if flown
according to design limits and safe pilotage.
One of the original faults of the Cri-Cri was an inability to locate a
lightweight powerplant of sufficient power. It has been flown with a pair of
9hp(1973), 12hp(1977), and 15hp(1981) engines. In the last few years, giant
scale model engines have become available that a number of builders have
successfully utilized with horsepower ratings from 16 to 22. These engines
now are smooth operating twin-cylinder units, rather than the original JPX
15hp, whose size was limited by the strong vibrations of the single cylinder.
The latest iteration of the Cri-Cri is the MC-15. Mr. Colomban will not sell
plans to anyone in North America, but there are support groups for anyone who
would like to build this unique aircraft. There are a number of Cri-Cri’s
under construction in Canada, New Zealand, the United States, India, China,
Australia, and other parts of the world. Yahoo hosts two active groups:
CRICRI and cricridrawings. Becoming a member of either of these groups will
allow you to review posts, sift through vast amounts of Cri-Cri information,
and ask questions of experienced builders and pilots. Individual builders
have blogs as well. I am happy to point you in the right direction if you are
excited about building this special aircraft. I am in the process of creating
a complete 3-D model based version of the plans in SolidWorks, which will be
available in about 2 years. More information is available at:
http://www.alpineworldwide.com/alpine_global_cricri_project.htm
-Christian von Delius
Kalispell, Montana, USA
BrilliantDesignOnline@gmail.com