| 19-25 Skyrocket II | |
|---|---|
| Skyrocket II under aerodynamic evaluation by NASA. | |
| Role | Utility aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Bellanca Aircraft Engineering Inc. |
| First flight | March 1975 |
| Produced | 1 |
The Bellanca 19-25 Skyrocket II was a prototype light airplane built in the United States in the 1970s. Despite its advanced design and exceptionally good performance, it never achieved certification or entered production.
The aircraft was the result of Giuseppe Bellanca's son, August formed Bellanca Aircraft Engineering Inc. company in the 1970s with an all-new design. The Skyrocket II was a six-seat, low-wing cantilever monoplane of conventional configuration with retractable tricycle undercarriage. It was constructed of composite materials, an advanced feature for its time, and test flying proved it to be extremely fast in the air. Within months of its first flight, the prototype claimed five world airspeed records for an aircraft in its class, all of which still stand in 2007. The aircraft attracted the attention of NASA, which conducted an aerodynamic analysis of the design, in order to investigate natural laminar flow as a factor of its high performance.
Plans to produce the aircraft commercially were scrapped due to the downturn in the civil aviation market in the United States in the early 1980s. In the mid-1990s, plans were made to resurrect the design by selling it in revised kitplane form as the Skyrocket III to help fund a new certification programme, but these did not materialise.
General characteristics
Performance
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