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SeaStar:
Clean-sheet design or Seawind clone?
Michael Sweeney
4/16/1999
WEATHERFORD, Oklahoma — A turbine-powered
amphibious seaplane taking shape here is making waves even
before it hits the water.
Backers of the new SeaStar
kit aircraft contend that it is a “clean sheet design,” a
“next generation” amphibian, and “not a copy of any other
airplane.”
Dick Silva begs to differ. He claims the
SeaStar is nothing more than a rip-off of his airplane, the
Seawind, and he has gone to court to stop its
production.
“These guys made molds of the Seawind with
the intent of stretching it a foot and marketing it as a new
airplane, and we’re not going to let them get away with it,”
Silva said.
“What they’re doing is
criminal.”
Silva is president of SNA, Inc., of
Kimberton, Pennsylvania. SNA manufactures the kit-built,
piston-powered, fiberglass Seawind.
Silva said his
federal civil suit against two major investors in the SeaStar
project is expected to go to trial in Philadelphia in the next
couple of months.
Before then, he said, he plans to
amend it to include Craig Easter as a codefendant. Easter
lists himself as the designer of the SeaStar, and is in the
process of building the prototype SeaStar at Precision Design,
Inc., his aircraft parts manufacturing company at
Weatherford’s Thomas P. Stafford Airport.
Easter has
only completed a few pieces of the SeaStar, so no pictures of
the all-composite, carbon-graphite turboprop are available.
Computer-generated images of the aircraft, however,
show a striking resemblance to the Seawind — with windows that
look as if they came off a Burt Rutan design.
Easter
readily concedes that the SeaStar’s styling was inspired by
the Seawind. He insists, however, that his airplane is a
clean-sheet design.
“The SeaStar is the airplane that
Seawind should have built,” Easter says. He said the design
evolved out of discussions he had last year at Oshkosh with a
businessman from Hungary, Janos Dosa, who was interested in
building “the best Seawind available.”
Easter builds
aftermarket parts for kit builders, and has long sold
carbon-graphite control surfaces to Seawind builders. The
parts are lighter than the fiberglass parts supplied by the
Seawind factory.
“We started talking about Janos
building a Seawind and putting my parts on it, and the whole
thing evolved from there,” Easter said. Now Dosa is a major
investor in SeaStar International, and will be its exclusive
distributor in Europe, Asia, Australia and
Europe.
Easter will sell the kits in North and South
America.
While the most powerful Seawind is propelled
by a 300-horsepower Lycoming IO-540, the SeaStar will have a
657-horse Walter M601 gas turbine jutting from its tail and
turning a five-blade prop.
This is the same turbine
that powers the high-performance Legend kit
aircraft.
According to Easter’s projections, the
turbine SeaStar should cruise at 264 mph at 75% power and
10,000 feet. According to its specs, the Seawind cruises at
191 mph at 75% power and 8,000 feet.
Designed to seat
four adults in arm chairs plus two kids in facing jump seats
at the back of the cabin, the SeaStar also will be somewhat
larger than the Seawind.
It will have an empty weight
of 2,400 pounds, an overall weight of 4,000 pounds, and a
useful load of 1,600 pounds.
That compares to the
Seawind’s 2,300-pound empty weight, its 3,400-pound maximum
takeoff weight, and its 1,100-pound useful load.
The
SeaStar’s specs show a cabin that will be an inch or two wider
than the Seawind’s, with back seats that fold down flat,
allowing the airplane to be used as an air ambulance. Its
wingspan will be 38 feet versus 35 for the
Seawind.
Easter said the SeaStar also will rely on a
completely different airfoil, the GA37A315, in place of the
NLF0215f used on the Seawind.
While the NLF airfoil
produces lots of lift and has gentle stall characteristics,
Easter contends that it also has a high pitching moment. This,
he said, tends to force the nose down, requiring a higher trim
load on the tail and resulting in increased trim
drag.
The SeaStar is also going to come with a
substantially higher price tag — $90,000 versus $57,590 for
the quick-build version of the Seawind. Neither of those
prices includes engines, avionics, props or refinements such
as wiring and upholstery.
Most of the cost
differential, Easter said, is due to the higher price of the
advanced carbon fiber materials used in the
SeaStar.
Despite the higher initial cost of the SeaStar
kit, however, Easter contends that its completed cost will
compare favorably to the competition, while the turbine plane
will offer far superior performance.
Meanwhile, SeaStar
International said all of its kits would be of the
“quick-build” variety, which a first-time builder ought to be
able to complete in about 3,000 hours.
While Easter
figures he won’t be in position to begin delivering partial
kits until mid-2000 at the earliest, he said anyone willing to
plunk down the full cost of a complete kit right now will get
a 10% discount off the sales price.
He said the
prototype already has been sold, and he has been talking with
another 30 or so “good prospects.”
He said all
pre-production deposits would remain on deposit in an
interest-bearing escrow account in a U.S. bank until
delivery.
While Easter believes there will be plenty of
demand for the SeaStar among American adventurers, he believes
the airplane will sell even better overseas. “There are a lot
of countries where they need airplanes that can go into remote
areas and land anywhere, and that is the market we’re after,”
he said.
Easter said plans call for initial production
of the SeaStar to begin at his facilities, but eventually move
to Hungary, where labor costs are much lower than they are
here.
Eventually, he said, the company expects to
certify the airplane in Europe and the United States, and
develop models powered by diesel engines as well as a
350-horsepower turbocharged Lycoming TIO-540.
He said
he hopes to have a completed fuselage available for inspection
at AirVenture Oshkosh ’99, which is scheduled for July 28-Aug.
3 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
“There is no way we’ll have a
finished airplane by that time, but our goal is to have the
fuselage there,” he said.
It is a goal that may never
be achieved if Silva’s court suit succeeds.
“It cost us
dearly to bring the Seawind to market, and all we ask is that
people don’t copy it,” Silva said. “We are not in business to
invest millions in an airplane just to have somebody else rip
it off.”
Silva’s suit charges contract violation and
trademark infringement, and seeks unspecified monetary damages
as well as an injunction to stop production of the
SeaStar.
“It used to be that things like this were
immoral and unethical,” he said, “but that doesn’t seem to
make any difference anymore in this country.”
If you
want more information on the SeaStar, call Easter at
580-772-2140. SeaStar also maintains a Web site at
www.seastarplane.com.
SNA, Inc., can be contacted at
610-983-3377. Its Web site is at
www.seawindsna.com.
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