The Blue Yonder EZ King Cobra is a Canadian designed and built, single-engined, single-seat aircraft provided as a completed aircraft or in kit form by Blue Yonder Aviation. The aircraft is approximately a 60% scale replica of the Second World War Bell P-63 Kingcobra fighter.[1]
The aircraft can be constructed in Canada as a basic ultra-light, or amateur-built aircraft, but is not currently available as an advanced ultra-light.[2] [3]
The EZ King Cobra was designed by Wayne Winters of Indus, Alberta and based on the earlier EZ Merlin. The project was started as a customer request for an ultralight category scale replica of a fighter and was later offered as a commercially available kit aircraft.
Winters created the EZ King Cobra by designing a new cantilever wing based on the Merlin wing, itself based on the Lazair wing design. The fuselage is constructed of welded 4130 steel tube and has a canopy and fin that resembles the original fighter design. The aircraft retained the Junker's ailerons of the original Merlin wing along with the Clark "Y" airfoil and construction featuring a leading edge "D" cell and foam ribs. The prototype is powered by a Rotax 582 two stroke engine of 640NaN0.[4]
The prototype of the new design flew in 1998. In the basic ultralight version gross weight is limited to the category maximum of 12000NaN0.
The EZ King Cobra can accommodate a variety of powerplants:[5]
Despite being widely demonstrated no further orders have been received for the type and the prototype remains the sole flying example.
