50 knots rotation is perfectly fine for a plane that size. A Cessna Skyhawk is certified to rotate at 55 knots fully loaded (and since the stall speed is around 40knots, for specialty take-offs like soft fields it's much lower, 50knots is more than enough).

> Airplanes seem such a complex, standardized, full of red tape and elitist thing that such stories of hackers starting to pull random beams together and you get a thing that flies are pretty inspiring...

As a kid, I was introduced to the concept of ultralight[0] aircraft when me and a couple of friends stumbled upon a wreck of one in a field. Our parents realized it had to have come from the local place a few miles away. If your aircraft qualifies as ultralight, you do not need a license to fly it. A family friend of my parents had one that he'd roll out to the street, attach the wings, and take off, and then land back on the street, remove the wings, and roll it back into his garage.

These things were essentially go-karts with wings.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultralight_aviation

I'll raise you the Blackburn B-54 [0] and the Fairey Gannet [1].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_B-54

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Gannet

here is a great video documentary on the m-15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlyO9cJ8hiQ (Alexander the ok: PZL Mielec M-15: One of the Aircraft of All Time)

That image made me smile. Yeah, it would be bad at being a plane with poles attached to it like that. I'll see myself out now

This is mentioned in the article:

> But the airplane never became popular—although it became briefly famous when a heavily made-up example starred in 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

It was designed to carry to operate from very rough "airstrips" which is a very optimistic term for "a paddock that the farmer hopefully mowed recently and if you're lucky, they also removed most of the bigger stones".

I also imagine in the postwar WW2 antipodes, steel was a lot easier and cheaper to access, as well as work.

That was a prototype.

Update: I guess the final design also used steel.

> The pilot is above both the engine and the load, and is surrounded by a steel tube truss for maximum safety.

Steel alloys have better fatigue properties than aluminum. Many of us in aerospace would happily use a corrosion-resistant steel if not for the weight.

The Guppy is very ugly, but I think the Optica is quite nice — the large duct is a bit ugly, but the rest of it has good lines