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Rutan Quickie

🇺🇸 United States ·first flew 1977· single seat aircraft

🛩️ light / GA piston
9 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
  1. 1. Quickie Aircraft Quickie Q-1 ‘N169H’ (51271191344): Alan Wilson from Peterborough, Cambs, UK· CC BY-SA 2.0
  2. 2. Quickie C-GGLC 02: Ahunt· Public domain
  3. 3. Quickie Q200 Private, MST Maastricht (Zuid-Limburg), Netherlands PP1333902510: Peter Bakema· GFDL 1.2
  4. 4. Rutan Quickie (2834539547): Cliff from I now live in Arlington, VA (Outside Washington DC), USA· CC BY 2.0
  5. 5. Rutan Quickie (4391616166) (2): Bill Abbott· CC BY-SA 2.0
  6. 6. Rutan Quickie, Variviggen, BD-5 etc (4391616102) (2): Bill Abbott· CC BY-SA 2.0
  7. 7. Rutan-Quickie-landing: FlugKerl2· CC BY-SA 3.0
  8. 8. VH-LOQ Rutan Quickie Q200 (8543282577): Robert Frola· GFDL
  9. 9. VH-LOQ Rutan Quickie Q200 (8543283183): Robert Frola· GFDL
Read about it on Wikipedia ↗
Rutan Quickie, photo 1 of 9
1/9 Alan Wilson from Peterborough, Cambs, UK· CC BY-SA 2.0

what is it?

The Rutan Model 54 Quickie is a lightweight single-seat taildragger aircraft of composite construction, configured with tandem wings. The Quickie was primarily designed by Burt Rutan as a low-powered, highly efficient kit-plane. Its tandem wing design has one anhedral forward wing and one slightly larger dihedral rear wing.

How to recognise it: 1 piston engine with propeller · tandem wing · tailwheel (taildragger) · 5.1 m wingspan

base stats

  • speed 203 km/htop speed
  • size 220 kgmax take-off weight
  • built 350made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

  • First flew 49 years ago, in 1977.
  • Top speed is 1.6× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).

piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.

spec sheet

first flight
1977-11
number built
350
role
single seat aircraft
origin
🇺🇸 United States
makers
Quickie Aircraft, Rutan Aircraft Factory
engines
1× Onan B48M
length
5.3 m
wingspan
5.1 m
height
1.4 m
max take-off weight
220 kg
top speed
203 km/h
cruise speed
195 km/h
range
—
wings
tandem wing
landing gear
conventional landing gear

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.

Sources: Wikidata Q3453595, Wikipedia: Rutan Quickie (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.

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